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THE CHICAGO DaILy NEws 
takes pleasure in presenting this copy of 
WORLD CHANCELLERIES /0 





As a contribution to the cause of world 


peace, these interviews, originally pub- 
lished in’ THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS, 
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World 


Chancelleries 


SENTIMENTS, IDEAS, AND ARGUMENTS EXPRESSED 


_ BY FAMOUS OCCIDENTAL AND ORIENTAL STATESMEN 


LOOKING SLO. THE CONSOLIDA-RION) OFS THE 
PSYCHOLOGICAL BASES OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 


CALVIN COOLIDGE 
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 


A 
By EDWARD PRICE BELL 


DEAN OF THE FOREIGN STAFF OF 
THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS 


1926 


THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS 
CHICAGO 


COPYRIGHT, 1926 BY 
THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS COMPANY 


Printed in the United States of America. 


To the Memory 
of 
VICTOR FREMONT LAWSON 
Builder, Owner, and Editor-in-Chief 
of 
Tue Cuicaco Daity News 
Whose Understanding and Sympathy 
Transcended Religious, National, Ethnic, 
and Geographic Boundaries 





This Volume Sets Forth Notable Con- 
versations That Are Known in News- 
paper Mode of Speech as “Interviews” 


ee 


. . « One feels their earnestness, their 
sympathetic quality, their sincerity. One 
is moved by their eloquence. Almost every 
major principle and problem of civilized life 
fall within their range, and their outlook 
consistently is that of the common inter- 
ests of mankind. .. .” 


—CALVIN COOLIDGE. 


The White House, 
Washington, 
November 20, 1925. 


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Contents 


Page 
INTRODUCTION BY CALVIN COOLIDGE,...... XIII 
President of the United States 


Explanatory Article Relative to the Genesis and Pur- 
pose of the Symposium. By EDWARD PRICE 
By een ice cnt mene Sy uaa LAO ran ar STL UA natin Mine EE XVII 


JUDGE WILHELM MARX, Post-war Chancellor of 
Germany.—Graphic Description of the Trials of the 
Young Republic, with Reflections upon Its Consti- 
LUTION ANGHAIIIS tare re ey he eon gree 5 


PREMIER BENITO MUSSOLINI of Italy.—Exposition 
of Fascismo, the Creed of Young Italy, with Its 
Picturesque, Militant, and Fearless Anti-Bolshevik 
[ea dentro esis oI OR A Ne NE a Co tiene ad A 25 


RAYMOND POINCARE, France’s Former President and 
Great Post-War Premier, on Why France Fought, 
How She Fought, What She Fought For, What Are 
the Essentials of the French Soul.................. 43 


RAMSAY MAC DONALD, Former Premier of Great 
Britain, the World’s Most Brilliant Socialist-Labor 
Thinker, Tells Why, in his Judgment, the Socialists 
are “the Aristocrats of Modern Political and Social 


NOUSH TREN se Nore ei hee te a tate eee ia SINE 63 


CALVIN COOLIDGE, President of the United States. 
Study of the Heart and the Mind of the Man Who 
Probably Has no Rival in the Accuracy with Which 
He Reflects American Sentiment and Opinion, and in 
the Command He Consequently Has Over the Confi- 
dence of the American People..................... 81 


PREMIER MACKENZIE KING of Canada, One of the 
Most Interesting Statesmen in the World, an Extra- 
ordinary Blend of Human Emotion and Practical 
Sagacity—A Poet and an Economist.............. 99 


EDGAR ADDISON BANCROFT, Late American Am- 
bassador to Japan, Speaks Appreciatively of Japan- 
ese Policy, and Scoffs at Talk of Possible Aggression 
Against America by the Proud, Rugged, and Aspiring 
Yamato Racebes vl eee ee ee eee On eee 


PREMIER TAKAAKI KATO of Japan, One of the Quiet- 
est Spirits and Sanest Minds in Public Life, Discusses 
Japanese Qualities and the Ambitions of the First Men 
of the Island Empire—A Wise Champion of the Peace 


FOREIGN MINISTER BARON K. SHIDEHARA of 
Japan, Probably the Most Occidental of Orientals, 
Though Oriental to the Core, Reveals Japano-Amer- 
ican Diplomatic Interchanges, and Reasons with 


Particularity and Eloquence on the Problems of the 
Pacihic 7.5) Bt ioe prince aon nla a ge eae, 


MANUEL L. QUEZON, President of the Philippine 
Senate, the Most Forceful of Filipino Politicians, 
Argues for the Immediate and Complete Independence 
of the Philippines, and Gives His Views upon Pacific 
Problems iiiis.0% cud Wie a ee a er ce ee 


SENATOR SERGIO OSMENA, for Fifteen Years 
Speaker of the Philippine Lower House, the Most 
Reserved, Refined, and Scholarly of Filipino Public 
Men, Tells Why He Thinks His Country Ought to 
bé Freese erie cave eee ee cee Peed a eee re 


GOVERNOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD, the Occi- 
dental Giant of the West Pacific, and the One Con- 
summate Authority on the Philippines, Defines What 
He Conceives to Be America’s Duty to the Filipinos 
and to Christian Civilization in the Pacific Ocean— 
A‘PowertulsDocument?a.> papi Sie ee 


' DR. TANG SHAO-YI, China’s Former Minister for For- 
eign Affairs and Prime Minister—‘‘Grand Old Man’”’ 
of the Celestials—Lays Bare the Fundamental and 
Resistless Forces of Chinese Life in Perhaps the Most 
Fascinating and Moving Utterance That Ever Issued 
from China in Appeal to the Non-Chinese World. . . 


113 


119 


135 


147 


loys 


166 


170 


. INTRODUCTION 
By CALVIN COOLIDGE 


President of the United States of America 


In these carefully wrought statements of sentiment and 
opinion we have, I conceive, a peculiarly suggestive and 
important achievement in the field of international conciliation. 

Humanity, with reference to the danger of war, is today ina 
position different from that which it occupied yesterday. Wars 
once sprang from varied causes—biological, racial, dynastic, 
political, commercial, personal. Wars were sought. Wars were 
planned. Wars were a part of the accepted rationale of organ- 
ized human life. 

Those days, we venture to think, are past. But, if they are, 
it does not follow that the danger of war is past. War may be, 
and doubtless is, less probable than it was. Its real nature, its 
horror and unmitigated calamity, are more poignantly and 
widely realized than they were. Yet, so imperfectly do races 
and nations understand one another, so perplexing are many of 
their multiplying relationships, so restless are certain forces of 
evil, so insecure are the psychological bases of peace, that 
humanity truly may be said to live constantly in the shadow of 
the possibility of war. 

Not in war deliberate, but in war accidental, seems to me to 
lie the principal present peril. We have a world psychology 
more inflammable, more explosive, than it ought to be. There 
is tinder about. There are powder-mines. Any flying spark is 
dangerous. Our war with Spain, as we all remember, was pre- 
cipitated by the sinking of the Maine; and the Great War, 
whatever may have been its antecedents of history and of 
rivalry, rushed upon the world out of the Serajevo assassina- 
tions. We need fortification against accidents. We need an 
international mind more stably balanced against sudden 
shocks. | 

It is the distinctive virtue of these discussions, in my view, 
that they tend to give us such an international mind. One 
feels their earnestness, their sympathetic quality, their sincerity. 
One is moved by their eloquence. Almost every major principle 


xlil 


and problem of civilized life fall within their range, and their 
outlook consistently is that of the common interests of man- 
kind. If racial susceptibilities and nationalistic standpoints are 
urged with vividness and candor, they thus are urged, as I read 
them, only in the hope that the world, by gaining fuller knowl- 
edge of its parts, may be less ignorant of itself as a whole. 

Before we have the fact, we must have the philosophy, of 
world peace. All the men here interviewed endeavor to 
elucidate this philosophy. Their points of view should be of 
immense educational value. Their cordiality should make for a 
friendlier interracial and international mood. If cynicism be 
heard in this connection, I would say that in a meeting of 
amicable sentiment and well-disposed reasoning there is 
measureless power for good. Such meetings—such streams of 
moral and intellectual energy— irrigate the generous hopes and 
purposes of men. And such streams grow as they flow. They 
grow as they flow, for, in their long course toward their mighty 
objective, corresponding tributaries never cease to join them. 

World peace, a world affair, stands or falls by world opinion. 
If we are to have world peace, in other words, we must have 
the necessary world opinion to support it. And, if we are to 
have this opinion, we must have the right feeling underneath 
it. Such feeling, in turn, can exist only if races and nations be 
convinced that aggression and exploitation have had their day, 
that brute force is to be brought under mental and ethical 
control, that all-around justice is the fixed purpose—that 
civilization, in short, is to establish itself conclusively over 
barbarism. Feeling issues in thought, thought in action. What, 
therefore, could be more desirable than public expressions 
calculated to make international feeling what it ought to be, 
in order that international action may be what it ought to be? 

Enlightened minds and sympathetic hearts are the hope of 
the world. Without them, statesmanship can do nothing; with 
them, it faces no insoluble problem. Public opinion rooted in 
right feeling has countless victories to its credit. Its triumphs 
increase through the generations; if they did not, men of all 
colors and creeds would be on the back track. Public opinion 
abolished human slavery. It is waging a winning fight in a 
thousand directions. It is widening the scope and cementing 
the foundations of humanism in industry and liberty in politics. 
Give it light! Give it the light of the spirit and the light of the 
mind! Do this, and we shall march without halting to the 
permanent relegation of war. 


XIV 


America, I need not say, is fervently for peace. This fact 
stands out boldly in her history. It is written in her treaties, in 
her diplomacy, and in every utterance that reflects the emotions 
and convictions of her people. Who can misunderstand the 
moral, the lesson, the evidence, of the Washington Conference? 
Could any war-coveting nation, in America’s highly-privileged 
position, have called or responded to that Conference, or made 
the self-denying proposals America made and others accepted 
there? Certainly we, if anyone, were able to follow the old 
militaristic lines, but we elected to strike an historic blow for 
peace. Our feelings and purposes are unchanged. We are still 
against swollen armaments. Our attitude of mind is still that 
of the Washington Conference. And hence it is that we wel- 
come, and warmly welcome, every exhibition of peaceful pur- 
pose, whether it show itself in the region of theory or in the 
region of practice. 


Washington, D.C., 
November 20, 1925. 


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Origin and Object of the Interviews 


By EDWARD PRICE BELL 


Public spirit, whether of local or of general application, was 
one of the most pronounced and constant characteristics of 
Victor Fremont Lawson. He was a living, a dynamic citizen, 
and he knew that the rational interest of the citizen was 
limited only by the limits of the world. 

To be of service to statesmanship in the peaceful ordering of 
human affairs was among Mr. Lawson’s instinctive desires. 
It entered into his purpose—embodied, indeed, the chief 
moral element of his purpose—in founding, more than a quarter 
of a century ago, the Special Foreign Service of The Chicago 
Daily News. 

In founding this service, to be sure, Mr. Lawson was after 
the news; all journalists are after that: it is their elixir of life. 
But he also was after, and he was determined to get, a reflection 
of those qualities, idiosyncrasies, customs, and institutions which 
placed different peoples and civilizations in a light at once 
true and favorable. 

“All nations, rightly studied, are likable,’’ was one of Mr. 
Lawson’s sayings. 

Appreciation of this fact, he held, must be driven home to 
peoples as vital to that condition of world sentiment without 
which there could be no solidly-based world peace. Corres- 
pondents, therefore, who did what lay in their power legiti- 
mately to spread respect, admiration, and warmth of feeling 
among nations were doing their part to simplify the problems of 
statesmanship and promote the welfare of their fellow-men. 
Out of this impulse of the great editor grew a school of foreign 
correspondents who understood, and who understand, the inter- 
national opportunities and obligations of twentieth century 
journalism. 

In the library of Mr. Lawson’s home in Chicago a large 
window looked through a group of trees upon a beautiful bit 
of Lake Michigan. It was one of Mr. Lawson’s occasional 
pleasures to sit at that window and watch the never-resting 
water. I found him there, on a brilliant mid-winter morning 
in 1924, his expression uncommonly grave. 


XVil 


**May I ask what is on your mind, Mr. Lawson? ”’ 

He was sitting in a straight-lined chair, legs crossed, right 
arm caught over the back of the chair, hands clasped, eyes fixed 
upon mine. 

“Tl am thinking of Europe,”’ said he. 

“Of the chaos there?” 

“Yes. Apparently, it is chaos, material and mental. I can 
make out no coherence of thought anywhere. Unless the leaders 
pull themselves together, | am afraid the consequences of the 
war are going to be even worse than the war itself.”’ 


Two days later, in a written communication, I proposed to 
Mr. Lawson that we attempt to get from each of the most 
responsible officials of Europe a carefully reasoned statement 
designed to correct existing misunderstanding, allay inflamma- 
tion, point the way to reconstruction, and define the principles 
of an established international accord. It was suggested that 
such statements, published throughout the world, might prove 
of real service toward a restoration of constructive mental 
processes. 

Mr. Lawson gave instant approval to the proposal, and the 
result was the series of interviews in this volume with Judge 
Marx, Signor Mussolini, Monsieur Poincaré, and Mr. Mac- 
Donald, each of whom at that time was the minister of prime 
responsibility of a great Power in the vortex of the vast Euro- 
pean imbroglio. Never before did statesmen in such circum- 
stances, or any circumstances, give so much time, thought, and 
energy to an effort to make journalism the handmaiden of 
statecraft in the cause of humanity. 


Europe is a mighty center of human life. All the world 
feels the throb of its heart. But it is not all the world. Of this 
fact I had a sharp reminder in Rome, just after finishing the 
interview with Signor Mussolini, in the first week of May, 1924. 
American legislators were hurtling forward with an immigration 
bill containing a clause painful to Asiatic, especially Japanese, 
susceptibilities. American naval authorities were evolving 
plans for elaborate fleet maneuvers in the Pacific. There was 
talk of the extensive fortification of Hawaii. One particularly 
capacious American political brain was incubating a scheme for 
a White League of Nations in the Pacific! 

Japan’s reaction to all this was reflected in the Italian press. 
Japanese statesmen were calm, but certain ardent Japanese 
patriots were far from calm, and a perceptible wave of surprise 
and uneasiness was passing over the whole of Japanese society. 


XVill 


On the “‘train de luxe’’ between Rome and Paris on May 7, 
1924, I wrote Mr. Lawson as follows: 


*“*All sorts of perilous possibilities seem to me to inhere in 
the Japano-American situation. Unless some agency mediates 
between the opposing racial forces, clears up the cloudy zone 
between them, sets them seriously and temperately to investiga- 
ting and discussing their mutual standpoints, makes themkeenly 
conscious of whither they are tending, I have little doubt it is 
only a question of time until we shall have a color-conflict that 
will deluge the world with blood. I propose that The Chicago 
Daily News do what it can to fulfill this task of mediation.”’ 

Immediately on receipt of this letter, Mr. Lawson cabled: 

*“Your Pacific proposal very attractive. We shall act when 
you reach home.”’ 


Six months later, the Coolidge contribution to this symposium 
having been added to those from Europe, | left Chicago for 
Canada to ask Premier Mackenzie King to give us the opening 
interview of the Pacific series. From Ottawa I traveled to 
British Columbia, pursued our racial investigations along the 
Pacific coast of the United States to San Francisco, sailed 
thence to Hawaii, to Japan, to China, and finally to the Philip- 
pines, ever seeking light upon the question of how warlike ten- 
dencies in the Pacific might be reversed, and an era of growing 
general confidence opened in that stupendous theatre of human 
activity. My work finished, and the ship on which I was return- 
ing home touching at dawn on August 31, 1925, at the port of 
Victoria, a newspaper friend entered my cabin and told me 
Mr. Lawson was dead. 


“Our Great Adventure’’ was Mr. Lawson’s term for this 
extensive journalistic endeavor to set the tides of influential 
world opinion toward sanity, reconstruction, and peace. 
Though he lived to read all the interviews but two—that of 
Governor-General Wood of the Philippines and that of Dr. 
Tang Shao-yi of China—he did not live to know their full 
effect, nor can this be known; it must belong permanently to 
the imponderables of the interracial and international situation. 
But Mr. Lawson knew that a great amount of moral and intel- 
lectual vigor had been released in a good and urgent cause, 
and he was too profound a psychologist to require tangible 
proofs of what that meant. 

Tangible proofs, however, that substantial good had been 
done were appearing before Mr. Lawson died. The European 


xIx 


interviews were read with care in the European Chancelleries, 
and especially in those of the Great Powers. That they can 
have been without beneficial effect upon the official mind of 
Europe, that they can have failed to contribute something to 
the amicable and rational spirit which ran through the London 
and Paris Conferences and culminated in Locarno, does not 
stand to reason, and is known to be contrary to fact. Marx, 
Mussolini, Poincaré, and MacDonald expected results from 
what they did, and it is no secret in the diplomatic world that 
they were not disappointed. 


As to the Pacific@Ocean, The Daily News found it enveloped 
in war-fog and left it clear. All the interviews were published 
in Hawaii, Japan, China, the Philippines, and throughout the 
East. They powerfully struck a new note. It wasea note of 
reality. It was a note of friendship. It was a note of peace. 
All at once no more was heard of a warlike threat in the 
American naval maneuvers. People smiled at the talk of a 
“new Hawaiian Gibraltar in the Pacific.’’” Japan was not 
creeping up on the Philippines and Guam. She was not crouch- 
ing for a leap on Australia. There was no nascent, secret, 
formidable Japano-Chino-Russian anti-Occidental bloc. It all 
had been a dyspeptic dream! 


Ambassador Matsudaira, a fine specimen of his race, has 
testified to his high opinion of the work of The Chicago Daily 
News in the Pacific. He has done so privately and publicly. 
He said to me in Washington that the interviews had “im- 
pressed thinking minds deeply,” that they had “‘greatly aided 
in creating mutual confidence between the peoples of Japan 
and the United States,’’ and that they had “‘pleased the whole 
East.’’ Alfred Sze, the experienced and sagacious Chinese 
Minister in Washington, declared: ““The tranquillizing effect 
of the interviews hardly can be exaggerated.’ Personal word 
from Governor-General Wood shows him in accord with the 
view, not only that the situation in the Pacific—at all events, 
for the present—has been tranquillized, but that the cause of 
law, order, and progress has been strengthened in the Philip- 
pines. 

So much for the practical issue of the idea which won the 
support of Mr. Lawson’s sympathy, prestige, money, and 
machinery. The interviews have been published in newspaper 
and in reprint form. They now take their place, as Mr. Lawson 
wished they should, in book form for free circulation among 
leaders of thought in all civilized countries, their sole object 


xx 


to go some way toward producing that “‘right feeling’’ which 
President Coolidge accounts indispensable to the solution of 
the problem of world peace. 

Constituting, according to the President, “‘a peculiarly 
suggestive and important achievement in the field of inter- 
national conciliation,’ the interviews represent 36,000 miles 
of travel, from sub-arctic blizzards to tropical typhoons, and 
almost two years of intensive labor. One speaks with modera- 
tion, I think, in terming them unique; in declaring them with- 
out prototypes in breadth of conception and thoroughness of 
execution; in claiming for them as a whole the double character 
of a landmark in journalistic pioneering and an addition to the 
historical resources of international thought. 

Imprimaturs are an original feature of the interviews. These 
authorizations mean that the matter covered by them was 
carefully read and formally approved for publication by the 
officials interviewed. Also, in most instances, the statements 
were sanctioned by the Cabinets concerned, thus acquiring 
the literal authenticity and moral authority of great State 
papers. It is true, therefore, that when we listen to the voices 
in these pages we hear the messages, not only of individual 
heads of Governments, but of Governments in their collective 
quality. 

Another unprecedented mark of the interviews is that of 
the commendatory seal of the President of the United States. 
High politics and a comparatively new branch of journalism 
unite in a common service. It is a principle, to my mind, 
capable of useful application over a wide area. Not only 
statesmen, but specialists and thinkers of every calling, have 
a natural allegiance with the interviewer for the education of 
mankind. Fame is power. Fame is responsibility. Names 
with hypnotic properties are obligated to kindle, enlighten, 
and direct an attentive world. To do something in this way is 
the object alike of the conversations in this book, and of the 
foreword of the President. 

With what care the interviewees spoke, and how faithful 
they were to the determining elements of the various situations 
discussed, we learn from the fact that no essential of any one 
of the interviews has been discredited by the march of events. 
We see that in all substantial particulars Marx voiced the 
spirit of Germany, Mussolini that of Italy, Poincaré that of 
France, MacDonald that of Britain, Coolidge that of the 
United States, Mackenzie King that of Canada, Kato and 
Shidehara that of Japan, Quezon and Osmefia that of the 


XXi1 


independence-seeking Filipinos, Wood that of the Coolidge 
Administration relative to the Philippines, and Tang Shao-yi 
that of the Federalists of China. 

Mr. Lawson’s last words relative to the interviews, written 
when he learned by cable that the series had been completed 
in the talk with Tang Shao-yi, were these: 

‘‘The end crowns the work, and a great work it has been.” 

If it was a great work, many minds aside from the eminent 
men interviewed are entitled to thanks for a part in it, Victor 
Fremont Lawson first of all, for without his breadth of vision 
and international neighborliness it could not have been done. 
Thanks are due also to a group of enlightened diplomats— 
Wiedfeldt of Germany, Caetani of Italy, Jusserand of France, 
Howard of Britain, Matsudaira of Japan, Sze of China—and 
to a long list of obliging experts in the Chancelleries of three 
Continents. I would make grateful acknowledgment, too, to 
Miss Jane Addams, Judge Jesse Holdom, and William K. 
Pattison of Chicago, who cooperated with me in persuading 
Premier Mackenzie King of Canada to give the first interview 
on the complex of delicate problems centering in the Pacific. 

Finally, I cannot say how much I owe to the steady encour- 
agement and splendid editorial cooperation of Charles Henry 
Dennis, long Mr. Lawson’s chief editor, and to such colleagues 
in The Chicago Daily News Service as Leroy T. Vernon of 
Washington, Edgar Ansel Mowrer of Berlin, Hiram Kelly 
Moderwell of Rome, Paul Scott Mowrer of Paris, Constantine 
Brown of Paris, Hal O’Flaherty of London, John Russell 
Kennedy of Tokyo, James Butts of Peking, and Walter Robb 
of Manila, members of a faithful and brilliant organization 
that has made The Chicago Daily News known and respected 
in foreign political and commercial centers as it is in those of 
the United States. 








GERMANY’S HOPE for PEACE 


Conversations with 


CHANCELLOR MARX OF GERMANY 


“Heavy Wars Disarm Peoples in Their Minds: 

Only the Abolition of the Teachings of War, and 

of the Objective Symbols of War, Can Keep Peoples 
Disarmed in Their Minds.” 


i iv ‘ _ 
m py ny re 
+ co ¥ ty 


A 


FoR a ft ants 
fy aia wien 


AY 


Pi 


ae 





, 
Germany's Hope for Peace 
©) 5 talks took place in the library of the Chancellery at 


a round table beneath the coat of arms of Bismarck and 

with souvenirs of the Iron Chancellor on every hand. 
Our interpreter was Dr. Otto Carl Kiep, legal counselor of 
the Chancellery, a master of English as of German. For a 
full fortnight we availed ourselves of scraps of time, early and 
late, between Cabinet meetings, administrative duties and the 
demands of the electoral campaign, then at its height. Of 
talking alone there was twenty-four solid hours, and then days 
and nights of writing, translating, re-translating, revising and 
revising again. Judge Marx made his final study of my finished 
draft as he traveled between Berlin and Frankfort in the course 
of a speaking tour. 


Appearance of Dignity, simplicity, modesty, sptritual-minded- 
of Chancellor. ness, instinctive grasp of essentials, broad hu- 

man sympathy and individual warmth of 
nature are conspicuous qualities of Judge Marx’s personality. 
His eyes are gray, his face round and benevolent, his forehead 
wide and high. He has a white mustache and his hair is cut 
short all over. He speaks rapidly in a low voice, making oc- 
casional simple gestures with his hands, and often smiling 
searchingly into the eyes of those about him. His kindliness, 
his courtesy, cannot be exaggerated; these, so far as I could 
observe, never were thrust aside by duty, however urgent and 
onerous. His gold-rimmed spectacles add to his professorial 
benignity. 

From the room where we talked we looked out upon the 
wooded gardens of the Chancellery—a paradise in summer, al- 
ready flooded with the melody of the thrush. Flanking these 
gardens was the colonnade, specially constructed for the strolls 
and the State-causeries of Bismarck and the old Emperor. Near 
at hand were the Chancellor’s office, with its great desk and 
lofty ceilings; Bismarck’s room, with his own roll-top mahogany 
desk, a bookcase atop, and on the walls portraits of the old 
Emperor, Von Bulow and the Iron Chancellor himself, a vivid, 
grim, and powerful figure; the Congress Hall, where the repre- 


[ Page Five } 


AAO PE VECO hd B CicHiVAvIN iG) Bo Cee ne ee 


sentatives of the Great Powers, including Disraeli, met to settle 
the Eastern question; the Cabinet Room, where there are so 
many meetings now; the gilded and artistic Salon, with winter 
garden, scene of magnificent social gatherings in the past; next 
door the Foreign Office—the whole in the center of the most 
historic associations of the Wilhelmstrasse, the most famous 
and aristocratic street of the greatest modern city of Europe. 


He Has Given Wilhelm Marx, aged 61, was born at Cologne, 
Notable Service. where he attended the gymnasium. He 

studied law at Bonn University and entered 
the legal service of the State in 1884, and he has held many 
judgeships, including that of the Presidency of the Court of 
Appeal in Berlin. He is president of the Catholic schools or- 
ganization of Germany, and of the People’s Catholic Union. 
For nineteen years he has been a member of the Prussian Diet. 
For eight years he was a member of the old German Reichstag. 
He was a member of the German National Assembly and then a 
member of the new Reichstag. He is the author of numerous 
works on legal and educational questions. Judge Marx became 
the German Chancellor Nov. 30, 1923, in succession to Gustav 
Stresemann, now Minister of Foreign Affairs. 

*“What are Republican Germany’s chief anxieties and prob- 
lems?’’ was the opening question. 

‘‘All center in the Reparations question. Speaking quite non- 
rhetorically, this question is pregnant with life or death for 
Germany. If we be freed politically and economically; if our 
definitive burden be one we can bear; and, if we receive the 
foreign financial countenance essential to our solvency, we 
can erect a stable democratic State, and bring back to our 
people the prosperity vital alike to them and to those produc- 
ing and distributing nations that stand in a relation of inter- 
dependence to them. Denied the advantages I have enumer- 
ated, we can look forward to nothing but the disruption of our 
State and the prostration of our economy, with the measureless 
misery they imply.” 

‘Do you regard as synonymous the safety of the Republic 
and the safety of European peace?”’ 

“T regard the Republic as a powerful influence for neighbor- 
liness, reason, and justice in Europe—that is to say, a powerful 
influence for peace here and everywhere. If the Republic went 
down before a nationalistic movement, produced and fostered 
by unrelenting pressure from abroad, such radical develop- 
[ Page Six ] 


STR MO ANY FS Fee en aa Rd HAY A Id 


ments, whether in the direction of the extreme Right or the 
extreme Left, obviously would be fatal to any sort of fulfill- 
ment of the Treaty of Versailles. We have met and subdued 
indescribable difficulties. Our efforts—efforts to cope with the 
concrete and the unavoidable—have provided, I think, an in- 
comparable field for the study of history, political economy, 
finance, and every major problem of organized human life, 
beset with the most grievous conditions that can afflict a 
people. Radical dangers, from the extreme Right and the ex- 
treme Left, have been put down. Republicanism is rooted in 
the convictions of the people. It can be uprooted only by 
storms that may break over it from abroad.”’ 


Loyalty of “‘Your Army is loyal?’ 
the German “In every crisis before the war, during the war, 
Army. and since the war, our Army has been loyal. Its 
traditions, of which it is proud, are strictly adverse 
to any participation in politics. Its spiritual substance is 
German. It reflects instinctive Germanic devotion to discip- 
line. Bolshevism found it adamant. The uprising in Munich 
under Hittler clearly showed the Army’s attitude to the Repub- 
lic. Its vicissitudes have given us military and civil names that 
will live in history beside those of our great leaders of the war 
and of former times—the man, for example, who stayed the 
tide of bolshevism; those who grappled with the task of re- 
building our wrecked social and economic’ structure; those who 
kept to their posts in the heaviest seas, and helped to steer our 
waterlogged craft through the countless rocks on the passage.” 

““You refer to men like Ebert, von Seeckt, Noske>?”’ 

“‘To these and many others we owe gratitude. But none 
seeks prominence; all desire to do their duty to the nation 
unostentatiously. As long as this sense of duty remains, we 
face the future, however anxious, not without confidence.”’ 


Asks General ‘‘How does Republican Germany look upon 
Disarmament. disarmament?” 

“‘We have accepted it in principle, and regard 
it with favor if it be universal. Internationally, Germany al- 
ready is disarmed. We have neither army nor navy of inter- 
national meaning. Thus Germany has everything to gain and 
nothing to lose from the advance of this magnificent ideal. We 
live encircled by arms and impotent upon the seas. Our fron- 
tiers are open—no rivers or mountains to shelter us, as Italy 


[ Page Seven } 


Was aR ae C oH YAWN IC) Bei hy Sh aR Galea ia 


has,.as Spain has, as France would like in the Rhine; no com- 
mand of the air; no protecting waters such as those ridden by 
Britain’s fleet. Germany stands as the world’s sole great 
example of disarmament, waiting for other powers tocome up.» 


‘“‘Can there be any effective disarmament except a psycholog- 
ical disarmament? With nations so formidably competent in 
engineering, mechanics, and chemistry, will not war eternally 
threaten until all faith in war, and all desire to make war, shall 
have been eradicated from the human mind?” 


‘“‘Psychological disarmament undoubtedly is essential to per- 
manent peace. How is it to be effected and maintained? Heavy 
wars, like the Great War, effect it, but they cannot maintain it. 


War Sufferings ‘‘Consider the privations and sufferings of 
Breed Peace our nation in the war. Much of this is still 
Desires. unknown abroad. Even our fighting troops 


had to submit to severe rationing. As early 
as 1916 the meat rations were restricted, while clothing and 
outfit were meager. Thus, apart from the physical and moral 
hardships of modern warfare, the material conditions ‘under 
which we pursued the war contrasted vividly with the wealth 
and abundance of the Allies’ resources, fed mainly from the in- 
exhaustible supplies of America. Our troops were rushed back 
and forth, from East to West,from Europe to Asia, withstanding 
strains patently in excess of those of the average allied units. 
Such causes cannot be without effect. He who knows from 
experience what war—modern war—means has no eagerness 
for its renewal. His experience breeds pacifism of the sound- 
est and most durable nature. The German nation is saturated 
with the knowledge and abhors the thought of further war; it 
desires peace. 


“This sentiment was particularly marked in 1919. Germany 
at that time not only yearned for peace but believed implicitly 
in its realization. Upon this psychology we fain would have 
built great things. We still hope to do so. But here, as in so 
many directions, policies and actions beyond our control tend 
to confound and defeat us. All around us we hear the clash of 
arms. Military inculcations, war talk, drilling, martial pagean- 
try, new ingenuity in munitional engineering—every one of 
them is an influence for the rearming of Germany psychologi- 
cally, and to negate such influences transcends human power. 
[ Page Eight | 


Coren Vin AUN Yi ome ner Ou tee eon ray Rod Poi BAY Cok 


To Preserve ‘‘We deplore the situation. We have youth 
Mental who know little or nothing of war. They are 
Disarmament. subject to war infection, as were their pred- 
ecessors, who went away to battle shouting, 

laughing, and singing. Heavy wars disarm peoples in their 
minds; only the abolition of the teachings of war and of the 
objective symbols of war can keep peoples disarmed in their 
minds. If we are to abolish war we must forget war. If we are 
to abolish war we must fill the minds and souls of our young 
with the gospel, the emotions and the images of peace.”’ 

“Your feeling is that the world’s supreme need is peace>”’ 

*“That certainly is my feeling.” 

“‘Do you know of a better way than through a League of 
Nations to get peace>?”’ 

nNOS: 

*‘Do you see any peril to nationality or to political and 
territorial sovereignty in the League as it stands today>”’ 

“So far as I can see, the League, as such, in practice, does 
not endanger the freedom of will, the independence, the securi- 
ty, of any nation. Great powers, democracies, will avoid any 
organization that threatens to wrest their destiny from their 
own hands. Preservation of the democratic principle pre- 
supposes the operation of local knowledge and control. Peoples 
are not ready for world federalism—for national autonomies 
related to an over-riding central authority, as, for example, the 
American States to Washington or the German States to Berlin. 
The League of Nations, as I understand it, would enthrone 
reason, justice, and peace, not by the crude and ineffectual in- 
strumentality of compulsion, but by a peace-breeding volun- 
tarism based upon international understanding and desire.”’ 


Germany “Will the German Republic join the League>”’ 
Would Join ‘‘It will join as soon as it may be permitted to 
the League. join consistently with what it conceives to be 


its rightful position among the nations. Other- 
wise it could not join with any prospect of serving itself or 
mankind. We should want a permanent place on the Council, 
for we are not a minor power. Besides, we should not want the 
League, with our support, to be identified with ex parte points 
of view respecting post-war adjustments. We should like its 
outlook upon world affairs to be uninfluenced by passions, pre}- 
udices, and political expedients with taproots in the war. This 
stream of world power, which, as Republican Germany hopes, 


{ Page Nine } 


We Ole Ree LD CloHerAL Ni CO Eee LS ae re ithe ene 


may become a mighty and resistless stream, should not be 
poisoned at its source.” 

‘‘What would be the effect of America’s joining?”’ 

“‘Without presuming to suggest to America what she should 
do in this or any other matter, I should say that American 
ideals and moral authority cannot be spared from any move- 
ment destined to dignify and gladden the world with confidence 
and tranquillity. Reciprocal trust and peace would be hard 
enough to get, even with every great nation helping to the 
limit of its power. It is indispensable to any successful peace 
movement that it embrace all the principal constituents of 
human strength in the world.” 

*‘Then you would wish Russia to join?” 

*‘T should wish all nations to put their shoulders to the wheel 
in this superlatively important matter.”’ 


International “You perceive no way for mankind to pro- 
Good gress harmoniously without some kind of 
Understanding. body in permanent session functioning for 
nations somewhat after the manner of a 
national government in a system of federated states>?”’ 

‘“‘T am convinced that the problems common to the nations 
demand an international body for their regular study and 
systematic accommodation.” 

“What do you consider the best method of moving against 
international ignorance?” 

‘““There are many ways leading to rere oe understand- 
ing. The main condition is good will—the wish to understand 
and come together. Herein lies the great moral duty of the 
Press. Propaganda must be done away with; honesty and 
sincerity must reign. There are, however, other practical 
methods—for instance, the interchange of children and young 
folk. Many thousands of German children found homes and 
succor in neighboring countries like Holland, Switzerland and 
Scandinavia, when our country was facing famine after the 
Armistice. These children return to us with hearts full of grati- 
tude and broader minds. They know there are others than 
Germans whom they can trust and love. Foreign students com- 
ing to us and living in German families undergo a similar men- 
tal and sentimental change. It is an effective way of inter- 
nationalizing intelligence and fellow-feeling. Exchange of pro- 
fessors, students, ministers, and publicists is excellent. Who- 
ever has the welfare of his own country at heart, and appreciates 


{ Page Ten } 


uC e NW AN ING aneom imriieO. rar He Orton | Prive Ane Oh 


the universality of the effect of good or ill fortune in any part 
of the world, will rejoice over all well-judged attempts to 
moderate excessive nationalism in the interests of the common 
weal,” 


Germany's ‘‘What is the housing situation in Germany?” 
Housing “It is a situation involving bad living conditions, 
Difficulties. _economic difficulties, and political perplexities. 

We suffer from a great lack of housing accommo- 
dation, with its inevitable physical discomforts, moral evils, 
social detriments, and anxieties for government. During the 
war we could build no houses. Moreover, we drastically re- 
stricted rents, and this restriction operated against house con- 
struction. It became necessary for the State to enter upon a 
large scheme of cheap housing for the people. To this, objec- 
tions have frequently been raised in the foreign Press on the 
ground that it would promote industrial dumping; but we were 
forced to persist in the scheme, as the homelessness of large 
numbers of the population was intolerable from the standpoint 
of both social order and humanity. 

“State building revenues were raised from the wealthier 
classes, and the accommodation accorded to each member of 
the community was restricted by public law. Our rule was one 
room for one person. Whoever had more rooms was billeted 
up with lodgers paying a cheap paper-mark rent. Naturally, 
there arose a desire on the part of persons of means to buy 
themselves free from billeting. This was allowed by the State 
on the basis of a payment sufficient to build as many rooms as 
were withdrawn from the operation of the rule of one room for 
one person. Thus a certain sum of money was raised, and a 
cheap construction program was carried out under the direction 
of our Minister of Public Welfare. This, to a certain extent, 
helped to relieve the situation. 

“Experience, however, led us* more and more to give up 
administrative control of residential property. It was expen- 
sive and, by keeping down the rent, it rendered house 
building a non-paying business. Besides, this kind of adminis- 
tration had the tendency to lead to corruption. Socialism in 
this realm failed us. The natural incentive to all industrial 
production—the prospect of earning interest on the capital out- 
lay and profits thereon—had to be re-established, and we de- 
cided to return to the principle of private enterprise. Laws 
restricting rents are being progressively abolished. 

[ Page Eleven ] 


Wie) or sae Ce HANG 6 Con SI a aoe eS cee es 


Housing ‘Unhappily, our housing troubles have not yet 
Scarcity gone. Rents are rising rapidly and the cost of 
Is Still Acute. living is following them. Higher costs of living 

call for more wages and more wages bring back 
the threat of inflation. Nevertheless, we have taken our de- 
cision in favor of trusting capitalistic principles to resuscitate 
the building trade, and we shall stand by this decision. There 
is not sufficient capital available on our money market to pro- 
duce.a building boom. Still, we hope the mere fact of housing 
properties becoming an attractive investment may lead to an 
increased construction of houses that will mean less unemploy- 
ment and hence a lightening of the burdens of the State in this 
respect. 

““There is a group of broad facts which strikingly reveals the 
genesis of our housing problem. For five years during the war 
house building in Germany was dead. Several hundred thou- 
sand young men came home from the war eager to get married 
and start housekeeping. Engaged couples had one reply for 
the question, ‘When is the wedding to be?’ It was, ‘When we 
can find a house.’ One year, a year and a half, three years of 
waiting—it was and still is so all over Germany. Immigrants 
flowed in upon us from East and West; immigrants from the 
ceded territories; fugitives expelled from the Ruhr and the 
Rhineland; thousands of people from Russia, Galicia, Poland, 
and the dismembered Austro-Hungarian Empire; Germans 
from the East and the Baltic; boatloads of Germans turned out 
of countries in which they had found homes and occupation 


before the war—about 2,000,000 of them in all.’’ 


No Secret Army ‘‘One hears that Germany is a nation of tax- 
of Aggression. dodgers; that monetary penalties are, or were, 

of no avail because of the worthlessness of the 
mark; that both civil and criminal law in the Republic is dis- 
credited; that the great industrialists, not the Reich, are Ger- 
many; that the Republican Government cannot subdue these 
industrialists; that it is impotent before extra-constitutional 
military societies financed by the treasuries of big industry; 
that a masked army of aggression is in process of integration. 
What can we say on these heads?” 

“Take the last point first. There is in Germany only one 
military force of the slightest consequence as such—the Reich- 
swehr, our Army. It stands unflinchingly for the Republic. It 
stands for law and order within our borders and for peace 
[ Page Twelve | 


Der Reidskanszler. Berlin, den 8. April 1924. 
Rk.2446. An 
HerrnE.Price Bel] 1 


The Chicago Daily News 


ivthise. JO 
Hote] Adlon. 


Sehr geehrter Herr Price Bell ! 


Die von Jhnen vorgelegte Aufzeichnung gibt den Jnhalt 
unserer Gespriche tiber die gegenwadrtigen wirtschaftlichen und 
politischen Probleme Deutschlands richtig wieder. Jch bestati- 
ge Jhnen gern, dass unsere Unterhaltungen sich in jeder Hin- 
sicht auf dem Boden gegenseitigen vollsten Vertrauens abspiel- 
ten und dass die behandelten Fragen in aller Offenheit eror- 
tert worden sind. 

Es war mir ein Vergntigen,durch diese Unterhaltungen zu 
dem wertvollen Werke beizutragen, welches die Chicago Daily 
News der internationalen Aufklarung tm Sinne der Volkerver- 


soOhnung gewidmet hat. 


Jn ausgezeichneter Hochachtung 


Ce, 





Serer VE) CAT INR Xp een tno bey! Bapit Bee ke niet BB An Crk, 


beyond them—the Republic’s policy, from which on no account 
will it depart. This myth of a nascent German army of ag- 
gression should be dismissed from men’s minds once for all. 
It is a source of nothing but universal evil, warping thought, 
disfiguring policy, buttressing militarism, postponing recon- 
struction, dashing the hopes of settled peace. 

*‘Property, in the days immediately following the war, when 
there was a general menace of bolshevism, anarchy, and crimes 
of violence, and when our military resources were compulsorily 
inadequate to control such a situation—property, including the 
great industries, sought to defend itself by privately employed 
guards. These were magnified into the potential units of a 
formidable army. They never were such and still less are they 
such now. With the growth of governmental power and a re- 
turn of the normal orderliness of the German people, these 
guards, or so-called military bands, became unnecessary and 
were suppressed. Similarly, we have suppressed as an element 
of possible disturbance and danger, our fascisti or more ex- 
treme and demonstrative nationalists. They are not allowed 
to make military preparations of any kind. : 


Ways of German ‘‘Now as to tax-dodging, collapse of law and 
Industrialists. the alleged puissance and implied disloyalty of 
the leaders of German industry. Again, let us 
take the last point first. German industrialists are no more an 
element apart in German life than are American industrialists 
in American life or the industrialists of any other country in 
the life of that country. Our industrialists are German, believe 
in Germany, love Germany, and serve Germany according to 
their light. What motive or interest could they have in dis- 
honoring her, in despoiling her, in spreading misery and des- 
peration among her people? They have their ideas about 
government and policy, as have the rest of us. But they are 
not seditionists and they are not trying to establish an in- 
dustrial tyranny. 

*‘As regards tax-dodging, I suppose the practice is not wholly 
unknown in most countries, and even in normal times. Law 
enforcement, too, always presents difficulties quite generally. 
Our times for a good many years have not been normal times. 
We have passed through conditions unforeseeable and un- 
imaginable—have trodden perhaps the strangest and most be- 
wildering ground in the whole march of human history. Econ- 
omic and social disorganization we have plumbed to its depths. 


[ Page Thirteen } 


Wir OvoR Wl CuLAIWAWN NCo Bill SSE Ae Re owes 


We have witnessed financial vagaries that made our best- 
trained minds reel. In the midst of our embarrassments, 
falling thick and fast, rushing upon us from unexpected direc- 
tions, established experience and doctrinaire thinking alike 
seemed a mockery. 


Germany's ‘‘There was the so-called ‘flight of capi- 
‘Flight of Capital.’’ tal.’ Exporters and industrialists selling 
their goods abroad hesitated to convert 
foreign money into paper marks for fear of the losses threaten- 
ing by depreciation. Besides, they frequently had to purchase 
their raw materials from abroad and required foreign currency 
for such transactions. Thus deposits were accumulated abroad 
sometimes, no doubt, in excess of actual requirements. 

“But also the great mass of wage-earners and consumers 
was forced through the effects of depreciation to depart from 
sound economic principles. Germans were the thriftiest people 
in Europe. They loved to work and save. It was their life. 
Monetary depreciations swept away this great, primitive, sus- 
taining instinct by making any kind of saving impossible. 
E\veryone’s preoccupation was not to save his earnings but to 
spend them as quickly as he could, lest they turn to nothing 
in his hands. Boys and girls, told by their parents to be saving, 
to hold their money, laughed at the advice. “Do you think us 
idiots?’ they said. Even public officials formerly completely 
unconversant with investment transactions, when they re- 
ceived their salaries, ran as fast as they could to the stock ex- 
change to convert their money into shares. What else could 
they do to avoid the consequences of depreciation and still 
maintain some kind of liquid capital? 

“It was the same everywhere—this amazing spectacle, 
this indescribable national moral and material tragedy of 
agonized earners, by nature provident, dropping their money 
as if it were on fire. Money is a marvelous thing in a nation. 
Stable, of fixed worth, enjoying universal confidence, it is not 
merely a medium of exchange; it is a preservant of values; it is 
the bedrock of national morale. Destroy its stability and you 
shock your civilization into ruins. If we have had turbulence; 
if we have had anarchy; if we have had a collapse of civil and 
criminal law; if we have shown many signs of a nation shat- 
tered and desperate, it has been because and only because our 
people were bereft of everything that makes social sanity and 
discipline possible. 


[ Page Fourteen } 


Cera Vt PAL LIN) ) inva wow eka ho eis horn ORS RIE AN Coe EF 


The Bankruptcy ‘On the other hand, gold-standard currencies 
of a Nation. - rushed into Germany as air into a vacuum. 

Foreigners flocked hither to scoop up our in- 
flated marks, exchange them for full-value German commodi- 
ties and retire enriched. From a neutral country, for example, 
there came a man for a little recreation in Berlin. He lived 
well at a fashionable hotel, bought in the Unter den Linden a 
beautiful German gold watch for the mark yield of a few gold 
notes, returned home and sold his watch for a sufficient profit 
to cover all his expenses in Germany. Thus the wealth still 
remaining in the country after the war was subjected to a 
heavy drain. 

“‘German employers, like their employes, ran a breathless 
race with the descent of the mark. Accustomed to pay their 
workers monthly, they began to pay weekly and finally daily, 
to minimize the losses from depreciation. For the same reason 
the workers no sooner received their marks than they hurried 
to get rid of them for something that would retain its value. 

“All State functions were harried correspondingly. Money 
received for taxes lost its value while in course of collection. 
Obligations were put off in order that they might be met with 
cheaper currency. Crimes against property multiplied, for 
necessitous people were disposed to take what the fruits of their 
labor would not buy. Men and women went into the forests 
for wood and into the fields for potatoes. Such crimes were 
punished in accordance with the law, but penalties were often 
futile against cold and hunger. 

“‘Contradictory views were held of what should or could be 
done. We passed highly restrictive and punitive legislation 
against the flight of capital. All privacy of commercial and 
banking accounts was set aside. Our methods resembled the 
bolshevistic inquisition. We turned on the taxation screw as 
far as practicable. We obtained what foreign currency we could 
to pay Reparations. But, in the end, all expedients failed, 
bankruptcy was complete, and payments under the Treaty of 
Versailles ceased. 


The Tragedy of ‘It is asserted that we voluntarily extin- 
the Falling Mark. guished the value of the mark by inflation. 

On the contrary, we frantically fought to 
maintain the standard of our money, realizing that depreciation 
meant confiscation; that lifelong savings would be snuffed out; 
that the middle and working classes would be impoverished; 


[ Page Fifteen ] 


Wit) Scere CoN AS IN GTC. Er Lee ree ae Sine Ea es 


that the national morale would undergo an unprecedented 
strain and that our entire social order might be engulfed in 
disaster. Not any desire of ours, nor any fault or default of ours, 
reduced the mark to worthless paper; this calamity befell us 
because of the imposition upon our war-weakened country of 
burdens greater than it could bear. 

“We are accused, again, of governmental connivance with 
industrial and commercial cleverness in ‘siphoning’ wealth out 
of Germany in the form of the gold deposits abroad derived 
from the sale of German exports to which | have already re- 
ferred. It is the allegation that these credits were left in foreign 
countries to evade Reparations payments. Precisely the con- 
trary isthetruth. We were struggling to maintain our domestic 
economy and to discharge the obligations fixed by the Treaty of 
Versailles. To do these things it was indispensable that our 
industrial and commercial apparatus should work. If this 
apparatus worked we must get food and raw materials from 
other countries, and such commodities were not to be had for 
the degraded mark. Such accumulations of foreign credit by 
German exporters as were permitted by the German Govern- 
ment—and our laws were as stringent as our observation was 
vigilant—were intended to keep German life and production 
going, not only to meet domestic needs but to make Repara- 
tions payments. 


Individuality of ‘If some exporters built up larger foreign 
Foreign Credits. credits than the German laws intended they 

should—and this is not impossible—it was 
not because of, but in spite of, the policy and the endeavors of 
the Reich. Our thought and energy in the Wilhelmstrasse were 
ever directed not to give special help or privileges to the trad- . 
ing community or any other class of our population, but to 
serve the Commonwealth, whose interests we believed would 
be advanced by honestly meeting, so far as possible, all the 
obligations of the government. 

‘Some persons talk as if it were easy for the German govern- 
ment to enter foreign banks and levy upon German credits 
there. At the first hint of such a thing American competent 
circles immediately pointed out its impossibility. Attempts to 
institute inquiries looking to an appraisal of German credits 
in the banks of European countries proved futile at the outset 
as no country would ever tolerate such interference in its bank- 
ing business. The sanctity of private property would not per- 
[ Page Sixteen ] 


Soe CIV re AINE eon dt uae eC in kre ee pee CO) bes Re eee Aves Cone Be 


mit of any such measure. And we ourselves have that feeling. 
It probably is not far from the truth to say that to overturn 
the principle of the inviolability of private property is to over- 
turn the foundation of our present social and economic or- 
ganization. So much for the charges that the German Republic 
deliberately committed against its people the crime of infla- 
tion and aided and abetted its exporters in an organized at- 
tempt to swindle the beneficiaries of the Treaty of Versailles.’’ 


Potential Wealth, ‘‘One hears that Germany is rich and also 
Actual Poverty. that she is poor.” 

*‘In a sense, she is both. Potentially, Ger- 
many is rich; she has certain natural and the sociological 
elements of great national wealth and power. Actually, German 
is not only poor but bankrupt. She has the plant for a vast 
industry, agricultural and commercial, but she has no working 
capital. Great as were her trading activities during the quarter 
of a century before the war, she had not time to accumulate 
the huge reserves of capital of the older business communities. 
She had relatively little amassed wealth; what she had was 
consumed during the war, delivered up under the Treaty of 
Versailles, or has evaporated by depreciation. 

“Capitalistic industrialism without liquid capital is like a 
living organism drained of blood; it is'a dead frame. Economi- 
cally Germany is no longer a vital phenomenon; she is a gigantic 
skeléton. Understanding, wisdom, forbearance abroad, to- 
gether with German skill, labor, and thrift at home, can re- 
clothe this skeleton with strong sinew and healthy flesh, and 
reirrigate its arteries with blood; ignorance, folly, aggression 
from outside will arrest rebuilding processes inside, and we 
shall see an irreparable crumbling of the skeleton’s bones. 
Censure of other Governments we wish to avoid; we hope their 
own complexities and perplexities will aid them in appreciating 
those of the Government of the German Republic.”’ 


Striving for a “Will you explain how it finally became 
Balanced Budget. possible for you to return to the gold 
standard—to establish the rentenmark?”’ 

“In much of our discussion, necessarily, for the purposes of 
full explanation to those who have not been in position to fol- 
low recent German history as closely as Germans have followed 
it, we have been looking backward; our view has been retro- 
spective; we have been examining past phases in the quick- 


[ Page Seventeen ] 


Wi tO Shae Lam CURA ATEN AC. Encl ele ee ae ee 


moving drama of post-war German life. There are those who 
ask: ‘Why did you not establish the rentenmark sooner? Why 
did you not earlier take a firm stand against the slump of 
your money?’ My answer is, ‘Because it was impossible.’ 


“Why was it impossible? It was impossible because the 
total of our inescapable expenditures was far greater than our 
wealth-producing capacity. We could get nowhere near a 
balancing of our budget, and the balanced budget, need- 
less to say, is the sine gua non of national solvency and of the 
corollary of national solvency—stable currency. Our problem, 
so far as Reparations were concerned—and Reparations were 
only one of our difficulties—was incalculably aggravated by 
the fact that we could not ascertain what was demanded of us. 
We were required to shovel against a heap of sand, the sand 
always running down upon us, and no light reaching us as to 
when the task would end. It is a kind of labor that almost no 
conceivable leadership can—if it ought to—induce a nation to 
perform. 


Lesson of | “‘France, in recent weeks, has been experiencing 
France’s some of the trials that come to an incumbered 
Difficulties. nation in connection with its currency. There has 

been a struggle to save the franc. If the franc has 
been hard pressed, if it has fallen, if extraordinary measures 
have been imperative to arrest its fall, who can wonder that 
the mark lost its value? France had the powerful financial 
support of America and England during the war, and those 
countries have not required her to pay even interest on her 
debt. Furthermore, France retained all her extensive colonies 
—even increased her colonial domain—and maintained full 
economic liberty. 


‘France has been collecting from Germany since the war. 
Germany herself financed her entire war outlay—borrowed 
nothing from abroad—and shouldered military occupation ex- 
penses and Reparations deliveries after the war. France, of 
course, had her vast burden of reconstruction in her devastated 
territories; but, when all is said, Germany’s financial burdens 
were immensely heavier. As France did not deliberately sink 
the franc, so Germany did not deliberately sink the mark. 


“Return to stable currency in Germany was out of the 
question while we were floundering in a financial region of 
bottomless quicksand. 


[ Page Eighteen | 


Cw Elev AveN enor ihr ORL OURY Pah Av CE 


Stability of the ‘‘The rentenmark, so far a successful experi- 
Rentenmark. ment, based on the experience gained through 

similar previous attempts made in other coun- 
tries during the last century and avoiding the errors committed 
on such former occasions, rests upon just one thing—German 
solvency. German solvency may have come to stay, and it 
may not. If it goes, as it went before, it seems inevitable that 
the rentenmark will go, as the mark went. Our temporary 
monetary stability is the result of heroic financial efforts made 
possible by suspending Reparations payments and reducing 
internal expenditures to the iron minimum. 

“Impossible Reparations demands—which, happily, we hope 
the combined foreign experience and judgment focused upon 
the problem will avert—would crush the foundations of the 
rentenmark, and involve not only Germany but Europe in 
continuing disaster. We require a moratorium, or credits, or 
both, and we require the prudent consideration of those in 
whose power it lies to prevent us from helping either ourselves 
or them.”’ 


Religious “Is religious feeling strong or weak among the 
Sentiment people>”’ 
in Germany. ‘Reduced in material fortunes and psychologi- 
cally depressed, our people in general have 
sought solace and strength in religion. We have greater church 
attendances than before the war. This return of the people to 
religion has been strongly stimulated by the humanitarian 
work of religious organizations, such as the Catholic Church 
and the Quakers, and by a national reaction against the spirit 
of war and against the atheistic tenets of Socialism. Socialism, 
indeed, in the crush of events in Germany since the war, would 
seem to have shown many shortcomings, economically and 
spiritually.” 
*“‘What are the moral habits and tendencies of the young?”’ 
“Enforced simplification of life has benefited our boys and 
girls. It has made them less affected, more serious, keener on 
healthful pleasures. Our young of the better classes are more 
democratic. Snobbishness is diminished. We see fewer 
monocles, patent leather shoes and other signs of dandy- 
ism. Girls’ dresses are simpler. Our young folk walk more and 
motor less. Life’s responsibilities have a larger place in their 
thoughts. Similar remarks apply to the working classes; there 
is a more natural mode of life all around. But it is true that 


[ Page Nineteen | 


Wa OR i iD Co BAW IN: SC Boe Le oe 


pastors, social workers and teachers complain of other post-war 
developments; order and discipline among the rising generation 
have been loosened, respect for authority shattered by the 
tide of revolution and its after effects; thrift and economy, as 
already shown, have lost their educational value. The lack of 
universal military training, with its healthful influence on the 
bodies and minds of our young men—its education in obedience 
and self-command—is here perceptible.” 


Beneficial ‘Motion pictures, the press, the platform, 
After Effects literature, art, in Germany—are they tending 
of War. to consolidate or to disintegrate character?” 


‘“‘On the whole, I should say, their influence has 
not proved to be detrimental. The newspapers and the book 
trade in Germany suffered severely under the economic con- 
sequences of publishers turned to the printing of foreign books, 
paid for in foreign currencies. More normal publishing condi- 
tions, however, have returned of late and the country is the 
gainer. 


‘‘In general, it may be said that the sufferings of the war and 
its after effects have produced certain beneficial results—simpler 
life, devotion to work, a desire for spiritual and ethical elevation 
to replace the materialistic assets lost—and that this develop- 
ment is also reflected in the different forms of public expression.’ 


Ideals of ‘What are the basic ideals of modern Germany?” 
Present-Day ‘‘In a phrase, to build up a happy, prosperous 
Germany. and powerful democracy, dedicated to peace 


and civilization. Our conception of education is 
democratic. It opens the door of advancement to all our 
people. We believe in and seek humanistic culture, but we 
also bear in mind the popular need for vocational training. It is 
our aim to draw upon both classicism and vocationalism in the 
interests of the Republic itself and in the interests of those 
responsibilities which it shares with other nations. 


‘Individual liberty is the fundamental of fundamentals of 
the Constitution of the Federation. Personal destiny in no 
respect is committed to human hands; it is committed to the 
law. Contrary, in certain particulars, to the situation under 
the Empire, our citizens are free to migrate, to emigrate, to 
worship, to work as they will. Men and women have complete 
legal, civic, and political equality, whether of right or of duty. 


[ Page Twenty ] 


Coan ttl VUReS IN ayaa ernnmu eb) Couekoy ike 6 a, rie Oh Ky ea Ar Ca) 


Marriage, the foundation of family life, rests upon the equal 
rights of both sexes. 

‘“‘It is our purpose as a State, while safeguarding the liberty 
of the citizen and making of his home an individual sanctuary, 
to collaborate with him in preserving the purity, health, and 
social progression of the family. Motherhood, in our view, 
has a special claim upon the protection and care of the Republic. 
Opportunities shall be provided by law equalizing the advan- 
tages, bodily, mental, and social, of illegitimate children with 
those of legitimate children. Every care will be taken to pro- 
mote in every practicable way the vigor, sanity, and happiness 
of the rising generation. 


Elements of “‘We have no State Church, but levy taxes for 
Freedom and_ the support of all creeds and denominations in 
Equality. accordance with their numerical strength. These 

taxes enable the various religious bodies to de- 
vote all of their collections to the charities of their choice. 
Freedom of religion, of the press, of assembly, of speech, of 
art, science, and teaching is guaranteed under our Constitution. 
Our education is free and compulsory to the eighteenth year. 
Private schools require the approval of the State and there 
must be no separation of pupils having reference to the means 
of their parents. It is a provision of the Constitution that our 
education shall be directed to the reconciliation of nations. 
Every pupil, upon completion of school attendance, receives 
a copy of the Constitution. 

“In ultimate essentials the Constitution of the German Re- 
public, I believe, closely resembles the Constitutions of Britain 
and the United States. In some respects our system corresponds 
to that of Great Britain. In other respects it follows American 
lines and in still other respects we have singularities of our 
own. Like the American and unlike the British Constitution, 
ours is written; we have a feeling in such things for definition 
and relative rigidity. Like the British and unlike the American 
Constitution ours empowers the President of the Federation, 
within limits, to dissolve the Reichstag; we favor a prompt 
method of liquidating deadlocks. There are other differences, 
but all these instruments of government, as I understand them, 
presuppose that supreme power proceeds from the people and 
aspire to forward a vigorous, humane, and peaceful social 
evolution, based upon the principles of property rights and 
popular liberty.” 


[Page Twenty-one | 


Woe Oconto CSHeVAVON]) Gop E Seto ene eons 


Light Needed ‘‘What might one transmit, by way of final 
to Give Peace. word, as Republican Germany’s message to 
other States and peoples?” 

‘“‘Our appeal is for justice in judgment, for fair treatment in 
spirit, for mutuality of forbearance and respect. I do not wish 
to discuss the question of the responsibility for the war. I 
merely would say, in this connection, that no one can under- 
stand the German people or have in them the confidence they 
deserve, if such person imagines them capable of deliberately 
and wantonly setting out to slay and conquer. Mankind in no 
part of the world is more inclined to peace and to international 
friendship than are the Germans. 

“‘It is misunderstanding that causes war. Misunderstanding 
breeds fear and animosity and the spirit of slaughter. It follows 
that the world needs light—needs international education. 
As soon as Germany, now struggling in the thicket of political 
and economic disorganization, can free her limbs and see her 
way out of the forest, she will be ready and eager to do her 
part, both by precept and by example, to advance humanity 
toward the goal of peace. Progress in that direction, in my 
opinion, is possible only through concentration of effort, inter- 
nationally organized. Such an organization would be a clear- 
ing house of world information and a focal point of world 
confidence. It is such a role that Germany would wish to see 
the League of Nations fulfill.” 


[ Page Twenty-two | 


od 
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Resta 
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\ “ust wre 
DAWA Mk if WL ! 


AV EnYei 7 RE Bul Re bl 


Fascismo’s Purposes outlined by 


PREMIER MUSSOLINI 


‘‘Fascismo is the Greatest Experiment 
in Our History in Making Italians.”’ 


Benito Mussolini 
HH cries Kelly Moderwell, Rome Correspondent of The 


Chicago Daily News, writes of the scene at the inter- 
view with Premier Mussolini: 


“Tt took place in the magnificent Chigi Palace, Italy’s 
present Foreign Office, in the largest and most splendid room 
of the Palace—that of President Mussolini—at midday, with 
the din of the Roman streets muffled by thick walls, and with 
the white Italian light flooding over the forceful apostle of 
Fascismo at his gigantic desk. 


“Our hopes—Mr. Bell’s and mine—had fallen low as we 
waited in an outer reception room. There were three of these 
rooms, each big enough for a house, and all were crowded with 
visitors to see the President. There were admirals and generals 
in their handsome uniforms. There were dignified, solemn- 
faced, frock-coated officials and committeemen from all 
over Italy. There were men of science and men of diplomacy. 


Keeps Appointment ‘“‘How could the President, in circum- 
on the Minute. stances like these, find even a moment 
for a newspaper interview? 


‘“‘But Mussolini is Mussolini. On the instant of our appoint- 
ment a secretary came through a lofty doorway and called out, 
‘Mr. Price Bell!’ We followed him along several corridors and 
through two or three ante-chambers to the door of the Presi- 
dent’s room. There we paused for a few seconds. Then the 
secretary turned the knob, opened the door, and the vast office 
of Mussolini lay before us. We had entered at one corner; 
diagonally across the great expanse of the room in the farthest 
corner from us sat Mussolini at his desk by a wide, towering 
window. 

““One’s glance involuntarily swept over the room, despite the 
magnetism of the man. Its walls are hung with battle-axes and 
strange gray tapestries. There is little furniture, accentuating 
the immense space. The floor is of beautifully grained hard- 
wood, smooth as glass. 


[Page Twenty-five ] 


Wii O UE RaG Lace) Cv Hi AWN CoE Se rae en a ee 


Brilliant Listener ‘‘Mussolini rose, stepped from behind his 
and Talker. desk and walked quickly toward us, erect 

and stern in bearing, like a soldier. He 
met us almost half-way, shook hands firmly and cordially, 
turned and retraced his steps to his chair. There were no 
hesitations, no preliminaries. Conversation began at once. 
Occasionally Mussolini used English, occasionally French, but 
nearly always his own musical and brilliant Italian. He was 
alternately animated and grave, his fine eyes sometimes gleam- 
ing playfully, sometimes reflecting what he has passed through 
since the outbreak of the Great War and what he has faced in 
his position of supreme political responsibility in Italy. 

““We were alone. When I saw Mussolini two years ago in a 
modest hotel room in Cannes, a young black shirt stood beside 
me, rifle in hand, motionless during a two-hour interview. 
But here Mussolini, without guards or secretaries and clad in 
a smartly-cut morning suit, was no longer dictator of an extra- 
legal militia, but first minister of the king. He listened. He 
listened intently, his hands relaxed on the arms of his chair, 
his head bowed. He seemed to concentrate as much energy on 
listening as do most orators on speaking.” 


Word Picture Mr. Bell’s impressions of the remarkable man 
of Mussolini. interviewed: 

‘He is not tall, or raw-boned, or pretty. He 
is somewhat short and decidedly well-fleshed, but not fat. 
Those who see mental and moral rather than physical features 
will, I think, call him handsome. Nor is he at all bad-looking 
physically. His dark-brown eyes are the talk of Italy. 

“Mussolini is intensely egoistic and quintessentially Italian. 
Some might call him affected. I put down his mannerisms not 
to affectation but to individuality. He is too serious, too re- 
flective, too sensible of the weight of his cares, too sincere, 
to be affected. As he talked, now sitting at his huge, flat- 
topped desk; now rising, pushing back the tails of his morning 
coat and thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets; some- 
times advancing his face close to mine and looking hard into 
my eyes, his right arm uplifted; sometimes appearing to forget 
I was there, turning away and pitching his words into space— 
as he did these things I felt in the presence less of a man than 
of a flesh-and-blood embodiment of a great national passion. 

“Mussolini has a luminous and powerful intellect. But it 
is not his intellect that astonishes one. It is his genius. It is 


[ Page Twenty-six } 


a) AR ae Wy aa Ra oy ray ae eh IU GPES | Vaan el et ivomie beg kd 


his spirit. It is the firein him. It is his self-forgetfulness. It is 
the depth and mystery of his personality. It is his courage; 
one easily can see him, on the instant and even eagerly, facing 
death for his principles, as he has done many times. 


Not Dictator ‘One way, and an accurate way, of describing 
but Liberator. Mussolini is to say that he is everything neu- 

tralism is not. ‘It is necessary to act, to move, 
to fight, perhaps to die,’ he says. This is virtually the alpha 
and omega of his feeling and philosophy. 


“They call him dictator. To the unpatriotic, to the anti- 
social and anti-civilized, to the lawless, to the bolshevists, he is 
dictator. To Italy—full of sterling human worth as it is 
full of natural beauty and of historical glory—to Italy, in my 
judgment, Mussolini is liberator. 


“IT should be sorry to have these words taken as mere rhe- 
toric. I am trying to give some idea of a man who has capti- 
vated a great people and re-created a nation. I am trying to 
give some idea of a man who has impressed Europe profoundly; 
who,in my opinion, has served Europe vitally, and who has 
become a portent and a promise in the civilization of the world.”’ 


‘“‘Fascismo, Sig. Mussolini, is the phenomenon we wish to 
try to understand.”’ 


“First,” was the reply, ““Fascismo is not merely a party or 
a movement wholly consumed in the field of politics. It was 
not born in Italy of a group of people who had elaborated, 
fixed and made popular a series of solutions of predetermined 
problems in the life and administration of the Italian State. 
Fascismo is a spiritual movement. It took form spontaneously 
among our people, and ata certain point issued in an unforeseen, 
impulsive and very great manifestation. 


**To place before oneself the problem of the elements con- 
tributing to determine this spiritual movement is to place 
before oneself the most profound and interesting of the his- 
torical problems of modern Italy, and perhaps of the contem- 
porary world. Italian life has presented for centuries the curious 
phenomenon of a disequilibrium between the height, the fine- 
ness and the energy of our civilization and the inadequacy of 
our education in citizenship. 


[ Page Twenty-seven ] 


Wise RiabraD C BUA N St Cre ei aaa ars ae 


Education in ‘‘This problem, which the purest and greatest 
Citizenship. spirit of modern Italy, Dante Alighieri, per- 

ceived at the moment when the Middle Ages 
closed, was left by the Risorgimento, not perhaps untouched, 
but far from a solution. For centuries it has tormented the 
best consciences of Italy. It has been the agony of the noblest 
Italian thinkers. It was the very last thought of the dying 
Cavour. And, unity having been accomplished, it remained 
for Massimo d’Azeglio to define the problem in a phrase that 
has become very popular among us: ‘Italy is made; now we 
must make Italians.’ 


‘“‘Fascismo is the greatest experiment in our history in 
making Italians. What do I mean by ‘making Italians’? I 
mean creating in Italy an education in citizenship. I mean 
creating something to destroy this disequilibrium between 
Italian civilization and Italian political life—this evil which 
has perturbed our history through all these generations.” 


How the Movement ‘‘When did the movement take tangible 
Was Born. form?” 

“Tt was born materially in 1919, but its 
origins are further back. Many years before the war the 
youngest, freshest and most energetic Italian spirits were try- 
ing impetuously to break the noose that seemed to be binding 
and suffocating our young State. They were many, but separ- 
ated. Every one of them was following a dream. With not a 
few it was a dream of a Socialism that had nothing at all todo 
with the barbaric desire to destroy society, or with the miser- 
able questions of thine and mine—a Socialism expressive above 
all of a desire for liberation and spiritual renewal. 


“When the Great War broke out, many Italians perceived 
not only that the historical exigencies of Italy made necessary 
our participation in the war, but that the warthad given an 
extraordinary and powerful impulse to the national integration 
of the Italian people. In every party, even among the extreme 
Socialists, developed an enthusiasm for war. These pro-war 
groups were compelled to vanquish the old political class in 
Italy—a class insensible to the true historical problem of 
modern Italy and to the vital value the war would have in 
Italian history. 


[| Page Twenty-eight ] 


Ag 


o 


Minstero degli Affari steri 
Ji Capo hi Gabinetto 


Roma, 30 aprile 1924 


Egregio Signore} 


S.E. il Presidente ha letto accuratamente 
41 Fesoconto che Ella ha scritto della sua intervista 
con lui e ha trovato che il suo pensiero é@ Secatotan 
Lei fedelmente riprodotto. 

Feli La felicita e La ringrazia del diligen= 
te lavoro che Ella ha compiuto e Le invia la fotografh 
che Ella trovera qui acclusa, come ricordo della inte= 
ressante Sua visita e come riconoscimento della utile 
opera che Elle. svolee per una chiara, sincera e diret= 
ta conoscenza nel pubblico americano del pensiero de= 


gli uomini di Stato d’Europa. 


Mi abbia, con i migliori saluti 


Sig. Edward PRICF BELL 


ROMA = 


Hétel de Russie 


PRR A alan YW ota Rego ata Exe Le Ree Doe ed 


Saving the War’s ‘‘At the close of the struggle, with victory 
Spiritual Fruits. established, this caste of politicians, profit- 

ing by the popular reaction following the 
frightful bloodshed and suffering, arose once more to regain the 
upper hand and to take possession of the State. The State, 
during the years of the war, became identified with the 5,000,000 
young Italians who had served in the army. These fresh and 
valiant spirits, of the stuff that crushed anti-interventionism. 
feared that their elimination from public affairs by the old 
caste would mean the destruction of the spiritual fruits of the 
war, to the deadly detriment of Italian life. 


“For four years the battle was waged bitterly between 
the old and the new order. In 1922 the new order conquered, 
as the interventionists had conquered in 1915. Thus you see 
Fascismo is not only a movement of armed reaction against 
revolutionary disorder, but a phase in the history of the Italian 
people, which, having achieved the unity of its national terri- 
tory, wished to achieve a higher form of spiritual power.” 


*“‘Fascismo, then, is both subjective and objective?”’ 


“Yes; it is a thing of the soul, and a thing of practical politics. 
It is emotion, theory, and practice; it is sentiment, ideas, and 
acts; it is something felt, something thought, and something 
done. Fascismo is a spiritual inspiration, a body of doctrine, 
and a system of State policy. It is morally resolute and in- 
tellectually precise. Its ultimate springs must be sought in 
Italian history and Italian consciousness. As an abstraction, 
Fascismo is as old as man’s sense of the beauty of great ideals; 
as a concretion, it is a thing expressing itself in the lives of Ital- 
ian youth—a thing of energy and daring and a thing inflexibly 
committed to the principle of sacrifice.”’ 


Character of “What do you mean, exactly, by ‘sacrifice’>”’ 
Italy’s Sacrifice. ‘I mean giving up a little to gain enormously 

more. Social welfare is, at one and the same 
time, the sum of individual sacrifices and the salvation of the 
individual. Life is safe, property is safe, personal liberty is safe, 
constitutionalism survives, only if individuals and classes offer 
up their selfish interest cn the altar of social well-being. Six 
hundred thousand Italian boys sacrificed their lives, and more 
than a million sacrificed bodily soundness, in order that Italian 
territory might be inviolate and Italian citizens free. Our 
armies fought for nothing else. Considered by itself, it seems 


[ Page Twenty-nine ] 


Wie spine Ld CLIH WAS Nii C sy Et ir Iso De a ee 


and is a colossal sacrifice; but it was a little thing to give for 
Italy. 


‘‘When we ask labor to be just to capital, or ask capital to 
be just to labor; when we ask either to forego a ruthless use of 
its power in its own apparent immediate interests; when we 
ask both to be socially conscious and considerate, we are urging 
the principle of sacrifice. But it is that kind of sacrifice which 
serves both him who makes it and him for whom it is made. 
It is the only principle compatible with orderly and happy 
human life. When the fascisti destroyed bolshevism in Italy— 
those who hate bolshevism will love us, and those who love 
bolshevism will hate us—they compelled the bolshevists to 
make a sacrifice. It was the sacrifice, however, of only the 
privilege the bolshevists were claiming to ruin us all, including 
themselves. 


Fascismo Opposed ‘‘It cannot be too strongly affirmed that 
to False Liberty. Fascismo is not an enemy of true liberty. 

It is an enemy of false liberty. It is an 
enemy of the liberty of one person or of any group of persons 
to take away the liberty of another person, or of the nation 
as a whole. Our point of view is that when we assert the 
rights of society we are asserting the rights of every member 
and of every element belonging to that society. No individual 
rights or liberties are secure in a State whose national rights 
and liberties are not secure. Upon social justice rests all jus- 
tice; social justice is essential to social equilibrium; and social 
equilibrium is another name for civilization. 


‘“Fascismo has committed acts of force; I neither deny nor 
condemn them. It had colossal difficulties to overcome. Civil 
war is one of the saddest phenomena of history, but it is not 
so sad as is the degradation of high national aims. Cromwell 
and Lincoln faced civil war. And who shall say that the blood 
shed at Gettysburg contributed less than did the blood shed in 
the War of Independence to the unity and greatness of the 
American nation? The Romans used to say, ‘resecare ad- 
vivum.’ Fascismo has been obliged to cut into the living flesh 
to restore the health of the Italian nation. It remembers its 
dead with passion and with reverence, and considers that they 
died, not for Fascismo, but for Italy. 


[ Page Thirty } 


Leys De AL Ie Ye re NS Rog Esso sree ae Poe 2 Loe ds 


Why Italian Strikes ‘“‘When we suppressed maniacal and dis- 
Were Stopped. astrous strikes in Italy, particularly in 

the postal and other public utility serv- 
ices, there was an outcry in some quarters that we were tramp- 
ling upon liberty. Upon what liberty? If we were trampling 
upon liberty, we were trampling upon no liberty except that 
of the labor agitators to overthrow the State, to enslave the 
people, to destroy industry and commerce, to threaten our 
peninsula with famine, and to wipe out the priceless heritage 
of generations of Italian valor, culminating at Vittorio Veneto. 
To that sort of liberty Fascismo is, verily, anenemy. And let 
it be remembered, in connection with all this, that when we 
struck at the monstrous pretensions of the walking delegates 
we did not offend honest labor; we lifted up honest labor’s 
heart from the Alps to the Ionian sea. 

*“‘It is said that Fascismo is aristocratic. So it is. It believes 
in a civilization of high ethics and high culture. But in what 
respect is the spirit of a people, of the common people—I never 
flatter them—disassociated in sympathy from high ethics and 
high culture? Fascismo’s aristocracy is the aristocracy of the 
spirit, the aristocracy of order, of law, against the tumult of 
the instincts and of popular passions. Charges against me and 
against Fascismo of hostility to the workers are grotesque. 


Fascismo’s Attitude ‘‘Work! Who works more than I, with 
Toward Labor. dozens of committees coming into this 
room every day and with appeals con- 
tinually flung on my desk reflecting the urgent needs of the 
8,000 communes of Italy—appeals, by the way, not for the 
‘liberty’ our opponents declare our people have lost, but for 
aid in improving the living conditions and safeguarding the 
health of the masses. Work I regard as the highest virtue of 
man and as the most powerful manifestation of the health of a 
people. Italian workers were among the original fascisti, and 
today Fascismo has a strong majority of them, together with 
small bourgeoisie who are nearer to the working class than to 
what you call the middle class. But I prefer that Fascismo’s 
attitude toward labor should be deduced from its conception 
of the State, which belongs to no one unless to those who serve 
it; and the square-cornered, firm, solid, unruffled Italian worker 
serves his country no less than does any one else.” 
“Your creed of liberty embraces the economic field>”’ 
“T am for the greatest economic liberty. The strong State 


[| Page Thirty-one } 


WAL OR D0 Sas uti i Corb aA 2yiNG DS Cal Rect ieee bere ome enn ny 


does not in the least mean the State that wishes to do every- 
thing for itself and by itself. On the contrary, I am convinced 
that the stronger the State the greater is the effective liberty 
within which the economic life develops. Economic enterprise 
has as much need of liberty at home as of security abroad.” 


Clearing *‘Fascismo has been destructive as well as con- 
the Ground. _ structive>’’ 

“Oh, yes. It had a great fabric to erect—the 
fabric of a new Italy—and the building site was badly cum- 
bered. It was cumbered by the debris of socialistic and dema- 
gogic wrongs and failures. Unwarranted privileges, corrupt 
politics, bolshevistic madness, uneconomic laws, called for re- 
moval. House rent ordinances were confiscating property, 
paralyzing building, and opening before tens of thousands of 
people the prospect of no roof to cover their heads. Radical 
laws and regulations shielded strikers. Confiscatory inheritance 
duties were discouraging thrift and small property and driving 
capital out of the country. All these deadweights, these post- 
war deposits, Fascismo swept from the building site of Italian 
national life—not always, perhaps, doing its work too tenderly 
—before commencing the erection of the new State.” 

‘‘What are some of the constructive achievements?” 

““‘Italy’s budget balanced; war fetters on liberty and property 
broken; confiscatory land legislation scrapped; limited suffrage 
granted to women; religion reintroduced into the public schools; 
majority rule asserted over coalescing minorities; tax dodgers 
rounded up; paper circulation decreased; popular savings 
enormously increased; death duties abolished in the interest of 
the family group; outflow of Italian capital stopped and inflow 
of foreign capital started; the lira appreciated; labor given the 
eight-hour day; value of government securities enhanced; rail- 
road trafic augmented; strikes abolished and unemployment 
reduced almost to the vanishing point. 


Effects of “Italy is tranquil. Italy is working. The 
Immigration Laws. equal of her stability is scarcely to be 

found in Europe. Yet the Italian people 
are grievously taxed. Proportionately to their economic possi- 
bilities they are bearing a greater tax burden than any other 
people in the world. Our economic situation, and consequently 
our living conditions, are made worse by foreign immigration 


[| Page Thirty-two } 


Dy A AN Wubi o Yu ray ing ff) Rott Fo Pera ea) ERO eo 0 NT) Bod 


laws, which diminish our capacity for finding work for our 
people.”’ 

‘‘What is your opinion of the immigration policy apparently 
foreshadowed in America?”’ 

Sig. Mussolini was standing when I asked this question. He 
fixed his dark brown eyes upon mine, lifted his right hand, and 
said slowly and solemnly: 

“‘T should think it very sad if America shut her gates against 
the people who produced her discoverer. Selective immigra- 
tion— a 

He stopped, sat down and bent over a paper on his desk. 
One knew what he meant. He meant that, as Italians see it, 
proposals not based upon the principle of selection for fitness, 
but based upon the principle of race or nationality, seem to 
find favor in Washington. Thoughtful Italians regard them- 
selves and Americans as ethnologically the two youngest na- 
tions of the world—both old stocks modified by innumerable 
foreign incursions, both melting pots, but both retaining un- 
impaired their racial primalities. Such Italians feel that neither 
Italo-Americans nor their brethren at home have done any- 
thing to forfeit American confidence in them as American citi- 
zens. Quite the contrary is the belief, and by way of proof one 
is reminded of the record of Italo-American soldiers in France 
and of Italian soldiers on the precipitous battlefields of the Alps. 





Italy Too Small ‘Sig. Mussolini, we should like very much 
For Its People. to have your honest view of this immigration 
matter.” 

“‘It is a matter of deep interest and real importance to Italy. 
Our emotions are enlisted because of our historical and cul- 
tural relations with America, and because of our nationalistic 
identity. Vast numbers of Italians have gone to America, have 
become loyal American citizens, have fought for America, and 
yet know and love Italy. These Italo-Americans, as we regard 
them, are an invaluable link between our civilizations, and a 
force for the integration of the world. Those of our citizens 
who go to America and return to us are an influence for Italo- 
American understanding, and whatever promotes such under- 
standing is a beneficent thing for both countries. 

“‘We are by no means ignorant of America’s difficulties in 
respect of immigration. Her right and duty to protect herself 
against undesirable aliens are clear. Italy, certainly, would not 
dream of asking her to accept immigrants likely,to burden or 


[ Page Thirty-three | 


Witness "Ls bel GY ORDA IN’, CoE, Lea eee Es eae ee 


embarrass her. We do not want to send our diseased or insane 
or dangerous people to the United States. It is of sound Italians 
we are thinking when we discuss immigration with your coun- 
try. Our peninsula is too small, too rocky, too hilly, too moun- 
tainous, to support our 40,000,000 and their increase. Only a 
third of the little land we have is tillable and we possess few 
mineral resources. 


Turn Naturally  ‘‘In a word, we are subject to great and 
Toward America. growing emigratory pressure, and our peo- 

ple naturally turn toward Columbia. They 
are good workers, sensible folk, orderly by nature, healthy in 
mind and body, heirs of a long and triumphant historical strug- 
gle; they will be a source of strength, not of weakness, to any 
society they join. We feel it strange that any one’s ideas on 
immigration in America should appear to favor Germans, for 
example, over Italians. Only the other day Americans and 
Italians were fighting together to defeat Germanic tyranny. 
Besides, there is much greater social unrest in Germany and 
much more bolshevism than there is in Italy. 

“TI do not wish to say anything harsh about the Germans, 
nor about any other people. Neither doI wish to be understood 
as suggesting that America should admit fewer Germans within 
her gates. I merely am intimating that I should find it hard 
to reconcile any American immigration proposals more favor- 
able to Germans than to Italians with what I conceive to be a 
rightful appreciation of the virtues of my fellow-countrymen. 
Italy’s need for larger opportunities for her people was greatly 
increased by her material sacrifices in the general struggle for 
freedom. This struggle not only wrecked our economic life but 
put upon our taxpayers a debt burden amounting to more 
than six-tenths of our national wealth. I have confidence that 
full discussion, attended by mutual sympathy, will result in 
a happy settlement of the Italo-American immigration prob- 
lem.” 


“You would say a sense of dignity lies at the core of na- 
tionality?” 

*““Absolutely. Without a sense of dignity there is no nation- 
ality. Without a sense of dignity, indeed, there is no individual- 
toad 
{ Page Thirty-four | 


Le TR MAG POL Ya peo tS Rt Ee une Lie ae ee ne Et 


Would Pay ““What is your feeling about the war debts>”’ 
the War Debts. ‘“That they should be paid. Debts must be 

paid. If debts are not paid, there is an end 
of credit, and it is much better to give up money than to give 
up credit. Credit is the bedrock of civilization; your Alexander 
Hamilton was quite right about that. Italy will pay. She can- 
not pay immediately. She must have time to effect her na- 
tional economic and financial consolidation. She must have 
time to work and save.” 

“You are an idealist, Sig. Mussolini>”’ 

“Yes; but an idealist who believes in the systematic and 
quick conversion of ideals into bettered conditionsof human life.”’ 

*‘How can statesmanship and journalism best serve each 
other and humanity?” 

*““By an aggressive and tireless assertion of mental and moral 
energy. By uttering only the truth. By fearing nothing but 
infidelity to the truth. By constant readiness to sacrifice them- 
selves for their fellow men.”’ 

“What would be your watchword for public men and 
writers?” 

““Fascismo ’s—‘ Duty’.”’ 


Character the ‘All the time you base yourself upon the 
Basis of All. = moralities>”’ 

“There is nothing else for one to base oneself 
upon. This is the first tenet of Fascismo: Moral character is 
primary. From the first, fascisti have understood that there 
could be no political rebirth without a moral rebirth. Physical 
force, as | have said, sometimes is necessary—Abraham Lin- 
coln, I repeat, found it necessary—to impose a superior prin- 
ciple; but order, above all, ought to be defended in the con- 
sciences of the citizens. Modern States can rest upon nothing 
but a general sense of duty to the fatherland. For this reason, 
the moral health of a people is bound up indissolubly with the 
political fortunes of the country. Fascismo’s immediate task, 
after breaking the resistance of the caste of politicians that 
opposed the rebirth of Italy, was to organize the new State; 
Fascismo’s ultimate and much greater task is to deepen and 
solidify the country’s civic morality. Hence our parole de 
jour: ‘Duty.’”’ 

““What do you say of classic culture?”’ 
‘That, for us, it is the basis of every true civic education. 
I do not wish to appear to express a principle of universal 


Page Thirty-five } 


NARS Tay Se cs Ray Be CUnF An NG 3 Ga? Ee tL Pe a al ee 


validity, but I believe that, if the classic culture is for us in- 
dispensable to our self-consciousness, it is for every people one 
of the most powerful instruments of civilization.” 

“What is your favorite art?” 

*‘Music. Because it is the most communicable. Next I like 
architecture, poetry, sculpture, painting.” 


Art Promise ‘“‘What do you think of Maeterlinck’s dictum 
of America. that ‘America has the cruelest commercialism 
the world ever has known’>?”’ 

“This Belgian is a great poet. |] doubt if any of his con- 
temporaries equal him as a psychic analyst. But only a lack 
of imagination can blind one to the stupendous art promise of 
the United States. It is still mainly promise, to be sure, for 
Americans have been busy over other things. But one day it 
will dazzle the world. One day the Americans will lead civiliza- 
tion in the fine arts, dimming even the greatest glories of the 
past. It is all sleeping in their destiny. Intense and mighty 
in material things they undoubtedly are. Why? Because of 
youth, simplicity, boundless energy. These qualities in due 
course will turn from industry, commerce, engineering, me- 
chanics, to artistic and literary efflorescence. Material America 
we know; artistic America we are yet to see.” 

Sig. Mussolini is a great student of history. He examines all 
phases of human development from the standpoint of historical 
criticism. ‘“Three cities made history,” he says. If you ask 
“What three?” he replies: “‘No matter. Cities always make 
history; villages endure it.’’” Rome, it goes without saying, is 
one of the three cities of Mussolini’s meaning. Hear him on 
the Eternal city: “Rome is today, as it ever has been, as it 
ever will be, the living heart of our race. It is the imperish- 
able symbol of our vitality as a people. Who holds Rome, 
holds the nation.”’ 


State Above Thus he felt when, in the closing days of October, 
All Classes. 1922, he marched at the head of 50,000 blue- 
shirted nationalists and black-shirted fascisti to 
take possession of the capital—a peaceful, disciplined, soldierly 
host, entering a city equally peaceful, and a city that smothered 
the marchers with flowers. 
“What is Fascismo’s attitude to the classes>”’ 
““None of us has ever thought of denying the historical func- 
tion of the social classes. Class struggles are a reality of history. 
But, precisely because they are, they are not to be isolated 


{ Page Thirty-six 


Be ie WAS ce No ie oh ROG Eevee a Se ARS A ay 


from the other realities that form the tissue of history. Class 
struggles, for example, cannot be abstracted from the reality 
of the nation. Fascismo rejects the conception—as a matter 
of fact it has been outgrown in modern scientific thought—that 
history can be reduced to the struggle of the classes. This con- 
ception Fascismo rejects in favor of the more organic idea that 
the classes act within the State according to their several inter- 
ests, while the State, representing the historical unity of the 
life of a people, is necessarily above these interests and these 
struggles. States have, with regard to the classes, a superior 
aim to attain, a higher task to serve. They dare not permit 
the struggle of the classes to assume supremacy in the national 
plife.’’ 

From the lips of Mussolini have burst many expressions, 
which, taken alone, would mislead the world concerning his 
temper and views. For example, he cried out to a great audience 
on one occasion: “It is blood that moves the wheels of history!”’ 
This crimson figure of speech would suggest that the present 
head of the Italian State believes in war for its own sake. 


Peace Necessary ‘‘Do you>’’ I asked him. 
to the World. ‘“‘Peace at any cost is as absurd as war at 
any cost. Neither Italy nor the United 
States, fortunately for both and for all, followed the peace-at- 
any-cost doctrine in the late war. One’s country imperiled 
means that one must fight. One cannot ignore one’s country 
any more than the tree can ignore its sustaining soil. But | 
reject with equal energy the doctrine that war can be the 
major interest of the world. 

“And, if you want to know something else, namely, my 
opinion with reference to the world’s interests in peace at this 
moment, I reply, sincerely and in full consciousness, that peace 
is necessary to Europe today; and that I, for my part, have 
directed Italian foreign policy in this sense, solving two of its 
most essential problems—our relations with Jugoslavia and 
our relations with Russia. Italy is non-aggressive. Italy wants 
respect and friendship and is ready to reciprocate them. Italy 
is absolutely for clear treaty relations with other powers, and 
for the strictest honoring of such treaties at whatever cost.” 

Corfu is not a subject of which Mussolini is at all afraid. 
He is deeply persuaded that the bombardment averted a crisis 
of the greatest peril to the peace of the world. Responsibility 
for the massacre of the Italian members of the international 


[ Page Thirty-seven | 


Wii me Reneeg CPE AEN Ts Go SE DOFn Laren es Lele Ee 


commission for the delimitation of the Greco-Albanian frontier, 
he places squarely upon the shoulders of the Greek Government. 

“Il struck for international morality,” said he. “‘I struck for 
the tranquillity of the Balkan States. I struck against war. 
I struck for civilization.” 


Favors the Probably no one is more skeptical about “‘beauti- 
League Idea. ful chimeras,’’ or more scornful of the “‘ideo- 

logies,’’ than is Mussolini. Yet he is no cynic. 
He confesses himself ‘‘a deeply religious man,”’ esteems religion 
‘ta formidable force that must be respected and defended,”’ and 
declares against anti-clerical and atheistic democracy, “‘which 
represents an old and useless toy.’’ He supports the ideal of 
reduced burdens and perils for humanity through judicious 
and gradual disarmament, but strongly holds that pietistic 
idealism in this sphere must not be allowed to expose the 
treasures of centuries of human toil, valor, and suffering to 
some sudden new eruption of savagery or tyranny. 

“What do you think of the League of Nations?”’ 

“| think everything possible should be done to realize the 
ideal of the League—the ideal of universal peace based upon 
justice. At times in their long history Italians have been almost 
too wide in their thinking and in their sympathies. Still, if they 
were, I reckon it among their first titles to greatness. Remark- 
able thinkers—Renan among them—have feared universalism 
as leading to national decay. But our world is different from 
what it was before the war. All humanity has a wider vision, 
a keener sense of fellowship, a quickened conscience toward 
those who must bear the brunt of war, if war come. 

‘Peace with honor, peace with justice, peace that does no 
violence to any nation’s healthy and righteous self-respect— 
that, indeed, is something worth struggling for, despite any 
peril inhering in internationalism. Internationalism would not 
be safe for a single nation; it is safe for all nations moving in 
concert toward a rational scheme of political, economic, and 
cultural intercourse. Nations need, and generally realize that 
they need, a lasting foundation of pacific co-existence. Such a 
foundation cannot be had without skillful and patient building, 
and such building is out of the question without established 
machinery for conducting international affairs in accordance 
with deliberately-developed world opinion. Governments and 
peoples must work together. They can work together only by 
understanding one another. They can understand one another 


[ Page Thirty-eight | 


Pei A SLs atte eS Rig Etieec Dae Lek RRA en Ed 


only, so to speak, by foregathering in a common council 
chamber or forum.” 


The Lessons In the full sense, Mussolini is a veteran of 
of the Trenches. the World War. He fought for Italy’s inter- 

vention. When Italy intervened, he went 
to the front as a private in the IIth Bersagliere regiment. In 
1917, through the bursting of a shell, he received thirty-eight 
wounds. Promoted on the field, and invalided out of the 
army, he returned to Milan and resumed his editorship of the 
Popolo d’Italia—for this individualist son of a Socialist father 
who worked at the forge and of a mother who taught school 
is by profession a journalist—and in that capacity he continued 
to support Italian arms until the final victory. 

“‘Let us never forget the trenches,” said he. ‘‘Their bloody 
filth those of us who were in them cannot forget. But let us 
remember some other things. Let us keep our eyes upon the 
widened horizons men of many nations saw in the trenches. 
Incalculable sacrifices call for a new phase in the history of 
humanity. What millions suffered death and mutilation for— 
the supremacy of the freedom of the human soul over physical 
force—statesmen should not forget. 

“Thinkers should prosecute to permanent success the work 
begun by fighting men. Fascismo is wholly for peace with 
honor and liberty. Fascismo is wholly for pledging the world, 
in the proper way, to this cause. I think America should swing 
into the orbit of this movement. Italy will not oppose the 
entry of Germany; Germany’s great power should be devoted 
to peace. Italy will not oppose the entry of Russia. Mankind 
in solid phalanx for the victory of reason and justice over 
violence should be triumphant. International unity for peace, 
in other words, ought to be an irresistible weapon. But man- 
kind cannot conquer peace with a broken sword.” 


{ Page Thirty-nine } 


sae ny 
A Or 











STEADFAST FRANCE 


That Nation’s Aims Set Forth by 
EX-PRESIDENT ann EX-PREMIER 
RAYMOND POINCARE. 


With an Appreciation of the French Statesman 
BY PAUL SCOTT MOWRER 


“Civilization to France is Not Merely Material Progress; in a 
Deeper Sense, and in a Higher Degree, it is Moral Progress.”’ 












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Raymond Poincaré 


UR conversation opened with this remark: 

““We should be happy if your Excellency would expound 

France’s contribution to history during the decade of 
the Great War.” 

Poincaré had been smiling as he welcomed us in the kindliest 
manner to his beautiful office in the Quai d’Orsay, and spoke 
rapidly of his appreciation of the interest of The Daily News 
in France and in the cause of international education. On 
hearing the words coupling the name of his country with the 
Great War the old statesman ceased smiling and his short, 
square face took on that look of mental concentration and 
moral pertinacity which is his characteristic expression while 
he is dealing with great matters. 

“It is a large and fascinating subject,’ he said. “And it is a 
profoundly affecting subject—the subject of what the France 
of the Great War did, what she bore, what she gave up, what 
she suffered, in order that she might live and continue her 
immemorial role of exponent and champion of free civilization. 
Why did France fight? How did she fight? What did she 
fight for? What has the war cost her in life—souls born and 
unborn—in wounds, in disease, in wealth, in material dis- 
repair? I will answer.’ 

Poincaré was speaking calmly and fluently in his vivid, 


polished French. 


The Fight “It is history we are to consider. And history 
for the World’s is a sacred thing, for history is truth. We 
Liberties. cannot be too careful to establish the truth 


about the Great War. If we failed to do this 
humanity could not draw the proper lessons from the past 
decade of destruction, bloodshed, and immeasurable agony and 
grief. In certain high intellectual quarters there is a specious, 
involved, casuistic effort to obscure the truth concerning the 
Great War and thus to distort and violate history. Let us, 
once for all, sweep away these gathering mists that veil and 
deform the historical landscape of the decade. 


[ Page Forty-three ] 


WHOM sd el CH ONAVENGS Gas E Sn Lake Regan ce seer eres 


“Why did France fight? Let us start there. Civilization to 
France is not merely material progress; in a deeper sense and 
in a higher degree it is moral progress. Sovereignty in inter- 
national affairs of the principles of liberty and justice, the right 
of every people to live concordantly with its own genius, the 
freedom of every people to work out its own ideals—these are 
dearer to France than is any nameable material thing. One 
nation—the Germany of the Hohenzollerns—stood forth in 
arms against this conception. Its divinity was force, its ambi- 
tion conquest, its aim to efface the nationalistic liberties and 
individualities of the world. France fought that divinity, that 
ambition, and that aim. 


The Fall of a ‘“‘I am not speaking in the spirit of passion; 
Heavy Hand. 1 am speaking in the spirit of science; | am 

speaking in the spirit of history. And I am 
speaking with a full sense of the responsibility of any one of 
reputation who presumes to turn educator to the world. It 
has been said, and it is said, that France is militaristic. Deeply 
pacific, she has been called warlike. After the mutilation of 
1870 she was accused of dreaming of military vengeance. Yet 
of all this there is not an iota of evidence. After 1870, despite 
our wounds and wrongs, we adopted Gambetta’s saying that 
even great evils may be righted by legal means. 

“Did our forbearance, despite the nobility of our cause, 
protect us from provocations? What is the record? Every 
three years after 1905 a heavy hand fell upon the diplomatic 
table of Europe. Each time, combining dignity with prudence, 
France averted war. But she did not stay that heavy hand. 
Only the dullest ears could be insensible of the distant rumble 
of artillery. Finally in 1914 came the ultimatum to Serbia, 
known and approved by the Berlin Government. Instantly the 
Entente strove for conciliation. Germany was adamant. 
France was commanded to be neutral. To insure this neutral- 
ity Germany’s troops must occupy Toul and Verdun. 


What France ‘“‘Awed by the magnitude of the impending 
Gave Up catastrophe, France’s military leaders—her 
for Peace. military leaders, mind you, these men who 

might have been supposed to embody the 
quintessence of her militaristic aspirations, if she had such 
aspirations—these leaders sprang into the struggle for peace. 
They called back our advanced troops. They cried out: ‘There 
[| Page Forty-four | 


Se VET A NLD READY OS bcd: ArT Aen al Cn 


must be no slightest appearance of provocation. There must 
be no outpost incidents. We must give physical and indubitable 
evidence of our desire for peace.’ This evidence cost us dearly. 
We gave up, on this side of the Franco-German frontier, a belt 
of territory ten kilometers wide, and many a French boy died 
to take that territory back. 

**Please remember,’”’ suddenly interjected the speaker, ““I am 
not pleading for France now. I am pleading for history. I 
have told you why France fought. Now, how did France fight? 
As there were two mentalities in conflict, as regards civilization 
—the Hohenzollern mentality and the mentality of democracy 
—so there were two antagonistic views respecting methods of 
warfare. ‘Short and atrocious war’ was the German slogan— 
not a long war humanely waged. To the spirit of France this 
seemed a barbarous sophism. 

*‘Again our scruples of civilization cost us dearly. Just as 
we had silenced the voice of our rightful claims, just as we 
had given up our territory the better to prove our love of 
peace, so we sacrificed our sons to the principles of humanity. 
We had no recourse to dishonorable ruses. We invented no 
processes of barbarity. We left to Germany the initiative and 
the dismal benefit of atrocity. We practiced no deception or 
bullying to win the sympathy of the neutrals. It was not our 
agents who made of strikes and assassinations a weapon of 
propaganda.” 


Purposes of Your mature judgment is that a German 
Two Nations. victory would have been a world fatality>”’’ I 
suggested. 


Poincaré looked straight at me. 

“What did the intuition of the world say>?’”’ he exclaimed. 
“Tt said that France was right. It understcod that freedom 
was in peril. Virtually all of non-Germanic humanity ap- 
preciated the true position. Belgium was to be annexed. 
Northern and eastern France and Poland were to be annexed. 
Austria was to take Serbia. All the Near East was to be sub- 
jJugated. Dismemberment for the British Empire. Yoking of 
all nations under an iron hegemony. Expropriation of prop- 
-erty-owning classes. German colonies governing every- 
thing and everybody. Slow denationalization of the democratic 
masses by the proscription of their ancient culture. For fifty 
years the military and industrial oligarchy of Germany had 
been molding the German people for this gigantic work of 


[ Page Forty-five } 


Wan OUR LD COMPLE PANE Cae cl Litas Geers Lee ae 


violence. Even America was menaced in the gravest way, 
economically and militarily.” 

*‘And France’s aims?”’ 

‘They never have varied. And they always would bear, as 
they will bear now, the closest scrutiny. We wanted back our 
two provinces torn from us in 1870 against the will of the in- 
habitants. We wanted reparation for the ravages suffered. 
We wanted guaranties of security. For ourselves these things 
are absolutely all we wanted and all we ever dreamed of claim- 
ing. But for others we wanted some things. For the Italians, 
Trent and Trieste; for the Poles, Czechs, Roumanians, Serbs, 
Croats and Slovenes, for the Danes of Schleswig—aye, even 
for the Germans themselves—we wanted freedom. It can not 
be said too often or with too much emphasis that France’s all- 
inclusive purpose, like the all-inclusive purposes of Britain 
and America, was to prevent freedom from being trampled 
into the dirt.” 


France’s Plan in ‘‘What was France’s peculiar function in 
War and Peace. the common effort of the Allies and the 
Associated Powers?”’ 

“‘Her peculiar function has had two phases. During the 
actual fighting France was the bastion of the whole defense. 
Of course, this bastion would have been powerless without its 
broad and mighty supports. Yet it was the bastion. Upon us 
fell the heaviest blows. Upon French territory was wrought 
the unparalleled and indescribable havoc. And France was the 
cement of the democratic coalition. As other flags gathered 
about our own, as the coalition grew larger, particular interests 
began to threaten the prevalence of the general interest. France 
strove with constancy and with success for the general interest. 
She did not seek to dominate equals. But she acted as inspirer 
and counselor, strong in the authority of her own experiences, 
sufferings and disinterestedness. 

““That was one phase of France’s peculiar function in the 
war. That was France’s function during the military part of 
the struggle. Her peculiar function since the German army 
collapsed—as it did collapse and collapse utterly—has been 
that of defender and champion of the Treaty of Peace. Di- 
vergences occurred among the Allies—natural divergences. 
That quality of universality which is one of the traits of the 
French mind led France consistently and steadfastly to pursue 
those solutions best calculated to fortify the future against war. 


[ Page Forty-six } 


See ae Atte Pa Ata fac) Ba Ror AG Nah C io aes 


Why France ““We did not always have our way. Our 
Entered the Ruhr. original war aims, adopted with enthusiasm 

by fraternal America, should have been 
carried out in the form of a treaty on the day the Kaiser’s 
legions went to pieces. Nationalistic interests and passions 
interfered. Peace-making was strangely complicated. Indeed, 
ever since 1919 the world has been passing through a crisis of 
particularism. Close co-operation had its violent reaction. 
Nations, feeling disillusioned, fell back upon themselves. Con- 
sequent upon this arose a great danger to the execution of 
the Treaty. 

‘““This danger was a danger for the peace of which the Treaty 
was and is the corner stone. At last Germany saw developing 
those fissures for which she so long had worked and prayed. 
It was a very perilous situation. France threw all her strength 
into the labor of saving the Treaty, saving the Entente, and 
keeping the peace. She wore herself out in this effort. Her 
occupation of the Ruhr was called a special enterprise of 
domination. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Fidelity 
to decisions taken in common, the necessity of Reparations, 
Germany’s clear purpose to exploit the differences among the 
Allies, a determination to spare the world the scandalous spec- 
tacle and the moral disaster of fraud triumphant over justice— 
these, and these only, were the springs of French action in 


the Ruhr.” 


The Death Roll ‘‘Do you think the political and journalistic 
of the War. critics of French policy reflected popular 
world opinion>”’ 

‘I never have thought so. It has been my feeling all along 
that the peoples of the world were skeptical of the insight or 
of the good faith of their mentors in this matter. I have been 
sustained by a consciousness of popular understanding and 
sympathy. It has’ seemed to me that humanity appreciated 
the purity of French motives and even rejoiced in the resolu- 
tion of France that, if she could avert it, there should not be 
a peace of injustice and of insecurity.” 

“What has the war cost France?” 

*‘Ah,”’ said the Prime Minister, “that is a terrible story. 
There is no more terrible story in the history of mankind. Of 
men of French blood we mobilized 7,935,000. Of natives 
(colored troops) we mobilized 475,000. Of our own people 
1,038,300 were killed and 249,000 were swallowed in mystery; 


[ Page Forty-seven ] 


WY Auer Ren tao CoB ATTN Co Bs Le Perret eee a a 


We term them ‘the missing.’ Add the killed and missing na- 
tives to the roll of our losses and you have a total of 1,355,000 
men, or 16.2 per cent of the total effectives mobilized. 


France's “‘Of the entire French population of Europe 
Staggering Losses. 3.29 per cent perished in the war. This 

percentage exceeds that of any other State 
of the Entente. Britain’s loss of life was 1.25 per cent of her 
population, Italy’s 1.24, America’s 0.10. France has 740,000 
maimed men to support. Apart from the human aspect of this 
fact, think of the economic burden! And we not only lost the 
lives of the born; we lost the lives of the unborn. In 1913 we 
had more than 600,000 births; in 1916 we had 315,000 and in 
1917 343,000. Since 1915 our excess of deaths over births has 
been 300,000, without taking account of military losses. Count- 
ing military losses and birth-rate deficits France’s loss of male 
population alone during the war was 2,000,000.” 

‘‘What of disease>?”’ 

“‘That question cannot be answered with any approach to 
definiteness. But any one with imagination will realize that 
the war inflicted upon France a vast mass of disease. Our 
cases of tuberculosis alone run into the hundreds of thousands. 
Deaths from this malady average 100,000 a year with 18,000 
new cases, mainly among soldiers back from the trenches and 
among the children of the occupied regions—pitiable little ones 
left by the occupying forces in a state of complete neglect 
and famine.” 


Enormous ‘“‘And what of material disrepair>?”’ 
Material Losses. ‘“‘Modern war is an immense industrial 

undertaking organized to destroy. Look at 
its balance-sheet in France. Our national fortune before the 
war was 300,000,000,000 francs ($60,000,000,000). This for- 
tune, by the capitalized value of pensions and indemnities, by 
damage to property, by foreign loans, and by the sum of the 
back rents due for the upkeep of buildings, has been reduced 
75,000,000,000 francs, or one-quarter of the entire wealth of 
the nation. 

“Our greatest losses were those in the invaded provinces— 
for four years the stage of an unexampled tragedy of slaughter 
and destruction. In those provinces at the outbreak of the war 
there were 1,190,066 buildings of all categories. Armistice day 
saw 893,792 of these buildings wrecked and 347,374 utterly 
destroyed. Vast areas of farmland had been partly or wholly 


[Page Forty-eight ] 


See the nA La Awe ON OL Ryan tie Ce Es 


ruined. In an expanse of 8,265,875 acres, nearly half called 
for much labor to restore it to fertility, and 291,985 acres 
were so badly damaged that the cost of the labor of restoration 
would have exceeded the value of the land. 


Details of “‘No one who viewed the devastation will ever 
War’s Havoc. get the picture out of mind. It was a scene 
that all the world should have looked upon and 
studied in order that all the world might have first-hand 
knowledge of what modern war is. Half the highways of the 
ten invaded provinces were in ruins. Just over 60,000 kilo- 
meters (37,500 miles) of roads required rebuilding. More than 
6,000 bridges and culverts were wiped out. And the railroads! 
Nearly 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) of track damaged or 
destroyed, with 481 bridges gone and 517 shelled and shattered! 
“Everything suffered accordingly. Waterways fell under 
the general havoc. More than a thousand kilometers (620 
miles) of canals were left as if they never had been. Locks and 
bridges to the number of 1,212 were demolished. Farm animals 
by hundreds of thousands were lost—892,388 cattle, 407,888 
horses, asses and mules, 58,980 sheep and goats, 24,954 pigs. 
Industry was battered into the dust. By proved design, and 
with a science as unerring as it was diabolic, this abominable 
outrage upon humanity was wrought. To cripple French in- 
dustry beyond recovery was the German aim. 

*“Who can forget or forgive what was done to our coal mines 
and our mining population? Every shaft in a large and busy 
region was put out of service, though this destruction did not 
spring from the slightest military necessity. All the mines 
were flooded. Half the mine railways required rebuilding and 
our people were compelled to reopen 3,072 kilometers (1,900 
miles) of galleries. As for factories, 2,000 were looted, 9,332 
were damaged and 3,341 were razed to the ground.” 


Restoring **These are the facts and conditions lying behind 
Devastated the Reparations problem?” I asked. 
Regions. “Precisely. We stand arguing in the midst of 
these ruins. If I talk about them a great deal it 
is because they mean a great deal. They mean a great deal 
materially and they mean even more morally. Justice is in- 
volved. Ethics is involved. And justice and ethics are vital 
to civilization. A great wrong has been committed, and no 
fabric of sophistry, however subtly woven, can cover it up. 
The Treaty says Germany shall repair these damages. We 


[ Page Forty-nine | 


WAC OU RK tae) Cat Agi NICs Foie een ee reed 


stand on the Treaty, but we have not waited for Germany to 
meet her obligations; despite an outlay of 34,167,000,000 
francs for pensions and personal indemnities, we have ex- 
pended 66,584,000,000 for property damages. Add to these 
figures the accumulated interest on the sums thus disbursed 
and one reaches a grand total of 118,154,000,000 francs that 
France has paid in Germany’s stead, with a further need of 
30,000,000,000 to complete the work of reconstruction.”’ 


What Germany ‘‘And what has France received from Ger- 
Has Paid. many?” 

“German payments to Dec. 31, 1923, ac- 
cording to the latest figures of the Reparations Commission, re- 
presents 8,411,399,000 gold marks ($2,001,912,000), of which 
only 5,692,246,000 gold marks have been distributed, the rest 
belonging to undistributed or suspended accounts. Of this 
total France has received 1,804,192,000 gold marks ($429,- 
397,000), including 143,995,000 gold marks representing the 
value of the Saar mines. But out of this amount France has 
repaid certain expenses, such as the Spa coal advances and the 
costs of occupation, so that the sum available for Reparations 
at the end of last year did not exceed 189,777,000 gold marks 
($45,166,000). 

“‘Germany has presented fantastic figures as to her pay- 
ments. Her economic ruin, which she did nothing to avoid, 
she thrusts forward to dissimulate her real wealth. On this 
point the experts’ conclusions were crushingly against her. 
Yet some people continue to assert that too heavy a burden 
has been imposed on her. If Germany’s obligations were 
diminished she alone of all the belligerent nations would have 
her debt remitted. France, on the other hand, would be forced 
to go on carrying the advances made in Germany’s stead to 
repair the damages and also would be under the necessity of 
paying her own debts to her Allies. Would this be fair? Would 
it be tolerable? Would it be in the interest of those things for 
which the free nations fought>?”’ 


France's ‘France will honor the inter-Allied debts?’ 
War Debts “Most certainly. France keeps her word. Just 
To Be Paid. now she is bowed low by her unprecedented 

obligations and by the results of the unfulfilled 
obligations of Germany. But she will stand erect again. 
America fully understands.”’ 


[ Page Fifty | 


Sean eee Al Pale tot Are for ak Feet ei Anny Co os 


Poincaré paused for a moment, reflecting. Then he resumed 
just a little acridly: 

““‘How foolish or wicked are these charges that France is 
militaristic—wants more war! Some of our critics have seemed 
to me quite mad. It would be well if they reviewed their utter- 
ances carefully and said to themselves in seriousness, “After 
all, are not these the spasms of a fevered sleep?’ 

‘*Everyone knows, for example, how pacific in spirit is the 
United States. France is not a whit less so. Indeed, remember- 
ing her agony, she desires peace passionately. Her occupation 
of the Ruhr is merely a surety—a means for the creditor to 
recover his due. She never dreamed, and never will dream, of 
imposing on German populations a change of country. What 
nation, if not the French, knows the meaning of such an im- 
position? France has an unrelaxing grasp of those principles 
which constitute her strength—the principles that have made 
her equal to the pitiless blows that have been’rained upon her. 


America’s “‘Nothing could be closer than the instinc- 
Trust in France. tive mutual sympathy between the Ameri- 
can people and the French people. In war 
and in peace they have understood each other. Your econo- 
mists and financiers understand us. It is a long story—that 
of the bonds which unite these two nations. Their strength 
has run confluently on the battle field, and it has run con- 
fluently still more recently in economic struggles more in- 
sidious but not less vital to the prosperity of this country. 
Your financiers—not obtuse men, surely—have trusted our 
policy. Witness their recent fight in defense of the franc. 
*‘Militarism! France dangerous to European freedom, a 
menace to her great ally, England, pursuing paths leading to 
another international catastrophe! What are the military facts 
of the international position? When peace came in 1918 France 
reduced her period of military service from three years to 
eighteen months. Barely 225,000 men are included in a mobil- 
zation class. Hence the French people now in active service 


number about 340,000. 


The Testimony ‘Yet more significant are the army and navy 
of the Budgets. budgets. In most countries military expenses 

have been increasing. It is the other way 
about in ‘militaristic’ France. Our military expenses in 1913 
were a third of the general budget; today they are a fifth. 
Army, navy and air force outlays in France last year aggregated 


[ Page Fifty-one ] 


SUN Gite ak Bo | CO SAWING Ce CES SS Sone Ree ers 


4,595,002,335 paper francs, or, at the rate of fifteen francs to 
the dollar, which corresponds roughly to the economic parity, 
$306,300,000. Compare with this America’s expenditure for 
like purposes of $708,940,554 and Britain’s of $943,000,000. 
We spend less than half as much as does America and Britain 
on our fighting forces, yet there are those who tell us that 
America and Britain are quite pacific—as, to be sure, they 
are—while France is planning European hegemony and en- 
dangering the peace of the world! 

‘‘France’s aeronautical expenses are particularly modest, if 
one reflects upon the ever-increasing role of aviation and upon 
the rapid deterioration of machines. We have 132 air squad- 
rons. To think of these attacking England, to read into the 
French heart the possibility of such an attack—such an ob- 
scuration of French appreciation of world realities, not to con- 
sider French sentiment—is to entertain imaginings that trans- 
port one into the domain of lunacy. But do not forget Ger- 
many. France, certainly, could not forget Germany, however 
hard she might strive. There are peace-loving Germans. We 
are grateful for them. We wish to lift no finger to hamper 
them. But there are war-loving Germans, too, and the secu- 
rity of French national life requires that they be borne in mind.” 


France's Attitude ‘‘France wants a pacific Germany?”’ 
Toward Germany. ‘‘What other country so much as France 
has reason to want a pacific Germany? 
All civilized peoples want a pacific Germany and need a pacific 
Germany, but France first among them; for, as | have said, 
France must be the bastion, if Germany move against democ- 
racy. But the world cannot influence Germany toward peace 
except by finally and everlastingly convincing her that her 
brutal war of aggression and of tyranny was a stupendous 
historical blunder and defeat. France stands for driving this 
lesson home, not only for Germany’s instruction bus in order 
that it may be written large and indelibly upon the permanent 
tablets of the human record.” 
““You accept the experts’ conclusions without reservations?” 
“Without reservations. Germany only has to put into effect 
the program drawn up by the Reparations Commission and we 
are ready to re-establish the economic unity of the Reich. On 
this point we are in complete agreement with Ramsay Mac- 
Donald and with our Belgian friends. Not at any time in the 
course of their labors did the experts imply that the re-establish- 


[ Page Fifty-two } 


eerie Beat Ad GD Pre Als C98 OC Be: Rumer Age. INS bee at 


ment of economic unity meant renunciation of the military 
occupation. Said Mr. Young recently: ‘I do not believe the 
presence of soldiers can have any effect on the German work- 
men. Difficulties between the British Government and our- 
selves on this subject have disappeared and I must render 
homage to the great courtesy of Mr. MacDonald during these 
negotiations.” 


Harmony “Your relations with Britain are thoroughly 
Among the Allies. friendly>”’ 

- “They never have been more so. Our mis- 
understandings have been stepping-stones to a more thorough 
accord. That we should continue to march side by side for 
the good of Europe and of the world is a natural issue of our 
mutual love of freedom. Both our nations are democratic. 
Both are liberal. My relations with Mr. MacDonald have 
been particularly cordial.”’ 

“How do you get on with Sig. Mussolini and the Italy of 
Fascismo>?”’ 

“In perfect harmony. In all the decisive moments of our 
history the essential liberalism of Italy and the essential liberal- 
ism of France have found firm ground of mutual sympathy. 
Sig. Mussolini’s Government invariably has shown itself in the 
kindliest conjunction with my own. There is no divergence 
between us relative to the major problems connected with the 
settlement and organization of European peace. All sugges- 
tions of intrigue, separate action, and cleavage are baseless.”’ 

*“What do you think of the action of Noske in Germany and 
of Mussolini in Italy against bolshevism?’’ 

*‘It goes without saying, I suppose, that any statesman who 
suppresses instincts of savagery and destruction is a benefactor 
of his own and of all nations.” 


France’s View ‘‘What is your attitude to soviet Russia?”’ 
of Sovietism. “France has no understanding of and no 
sympathy with the notion of national isola- 
tion. We desire to be on friendly and fruitful terms with all 
nations. But there must be a common recognition of the 
principles of law among peoples in trustful and profitable inter- 
course. French people invested heavily in Russia to develop 
her economic capital, her industries, her railroads, lands and 
mines. Russian acknowledgment of these debts is indispens- 
able to French confidence in Russia. Moreover, Russia, as 
the price of our confidence, must indemnify our nationals whom 


[ Page Fifty-three ] 


Wy Ors Reels 81D COE wy Gay Sy va Gar is Sandy GEA Be Oe LY BR = 


she has dispossessed. After all, civilized practices are necessary 
to civilized relations. My policy toward the soviets has re- 
mained in agreement with that of the United States. Bolshe- 
vism presents a difficult problem to occidental mentality. We 
cannot estimate the movement yet. We do know it is double- 
faced; Janus bifrons. Bolshevists are at once international 
revolutionaries and ardent nationalists bent on the work of 
Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible. Let them not bemuse 
themselves with the thought that occidental humanity is any 
more ready to lie down under a bolshevist than under a Prus- 
sian steam roller.”’ 

“‘Was France ever alarmed by the threat of a bolshevist 
Germany?” 

*‘Not in the least. That possibility frequently was lifted up 
to terrify us. It did not work. We had seen worse things. 
Even if Germany had become bolshevist France would have 
remained solid, calm, and free. We are immune against the 
bolshevist bacillus.” 


Policy Toward ‘‘What is your view of the proper policy to 
Colored Peoples. be followed with reference to the colored 
peoples?” 


“*] think it should be an idealistic and liberal policy. In the 
French mind, touching this question, are ideas similar to those 
which inspired the memorable amendments to the American 
Constitution. France makes no distinction among men on the 
basis of religion, race, or color. Our colonies are models of good 
understanding between the natives and the administrators. 
Wherever we plant our flag we work for a wider civilization. 
That our efforts are appreciated was proved by our soldiers 
out of the heart of Africa and of Asia—men who came to blend 
their heroism and their blood with the heroism and the blood 
of the troops of twenty white nations. It has been alleged by 
our enemies that we sent black soldiers to occupy the factories 
of the Ruhr. Pure propagandist fiction. Under my ministry 
not a colored man crossed the Rhine.”’ 


France’s Devotion ‘‘Do you feel the French character is well 
to Work. understood outside France?” 

““Not everywhere. Quite generally we are 
considered a frivolous people. Really we are a people pro- 


| Page Fifty-four | 


Naeige a A see AL Se Tt BP Ag Cad es 


foundly penetrated with the seriousness of life, but we clothe 
our gravity in light-hearted appearances. We have a certain 
pride in this. Do you conjecture our people had any thought 
of or desire for idleness after the war because huge reparations 
were due us from one of the wealthiest countries in the world 
—a country far wealthier than France, not only in waterways, 
coal fields, lignite, potash, metallurgical riches, but in agri- 
culture as well? 


*‘Not for a moment did France contemplate capitalizing her 
role as victim. She turned grimly from war to work. And she 
has been working steadily ever since she laid down the impedi- 
menta of the battle field. Her economic situation, solidly 
based on a well-balanced industry and agriculture, is one of 
the healthiest on the globe. Our exports are growing and our 
Colonial Empire holds out the certainty of the raw materials 
and markets essential for our future.” 

“Your political institutions are stable>’’ 

*“They are stable because they correspond to our needs. At 
no time since 1789 have we been attached more devotedly to 
the ideal of democracy. France’s experienced and high-minded 
elite are leading our masses toward an ever-expanding realiza- 
tion of this ideal.” 


Notable Aids ‘‘You favor a leadership of the elite>’’ 
to Progress. ““They are the leaven. They represent spirit- 
uality, intellect, culture—very precious things. 
It is not enough for a people to have farms, mines, railways, 
machines, meney. They must have wisdom. They must have 
sympathy. Without these inestimable intellectual and spiritual 
qualities international harmony and world peace never can be 
obtained. Machinery never will pacify humanity; only acute 
minds, determined wills, and enlightened souls can do this.”’ 

“Then you are for the classics as instrumentalities of civiliza- 
tion?” 

“Yes. They are its solidest prop. Antiquity has bequeathed 
to us ideas of law and right which are the ultimate foundation 
of the modern ideal. Until a people shall have assimilated the 
gist of ancient culture it cannot, in my view, call itself truly 
civilized. France has studied and debated the great peda- 
gogical question diligently. We have our strict classicists and 
our advocates of more room for science and modern languages. 
But neither school denies immense value to the legacy of 


[ Page Fifty-five | 


We 0) Ri bio COLH 2 ACON GG Eri Lote iaeiwa nck parser ce 


ideas, sentiments and artistic forms coming down to us from 
Greece and Rome.” 


France Remains Poincaré rejects the view that the modern 
Steadfast. world is degenerating. 

***Decadence’ has been pronounced,” said 
he. ‘*‘Too often, no doubt, the minds and souls of the people 
are ill fed by artists, writers, and the moving picture industry. 
But no particular technical process is to be blamed. As A‘sop 
remarked long ago, the tongue can be the worst or the best 
thing, according to the use made of it. Similarly, motion- 
pictures and other modes of expression are good or bad. I can 
conceive of no moral peril sufficiently seductive and potent to 
make much headway against the prodigious vitality of the 
French people. The French family is of a quality and strength 
fit to resist anything. Its religious sentiments are deep, its 
hold upon traditions firm, its love of truth passionate, its joy 
in splendid ideals unexcelled. It is this character which trans- 
lated itself into France’s early and late contributions to his- 
tory.” 

Poincaré had been seated at his desk. He rose. 

“‘My answer to your first question I will put in a nutshell,” 
said he, as he held my hand. “In the dark decade just past 
France has given up her sons. She has given up her wealth. 
She has suffered. She has held fast and is today holding fast— 
all for the rights of man. Against this great fact casuistry will 
writhe and twist in vain.” 

Mr. Mowrer and I had been conducted to the door of the 
Prime Minister’s room by an ordinary hall porter. Poincaré 
was alone and opened the door with his own hand. He was 
dressed in a somewhat worn lounge suit and looked a very 
simple, if very able, man—a personification of democratic 
statesmanship. Our whole conversation had taken place with- 
out the slightest interruption—no coming or going of secre- 
taries, no ringing of telephone bells, no sounds from the outer 
world. 


Faith in the As we were leaving, walking slowly from 

League of Nations. the Prime Minister’s desk to the door, 

where the great Frenchman shook hands 

with us two or three times, I asked him about the League of 
Nations, 

“It has my heartfelt allegiance,’”’ said he. “It already has 

aided powerfully in the task of European pacification and re- 


[ Page Fifty-six |, 


ee Me Ets AM LP hea Ag ecesee, OL) Bie RA ab eA ING ee Be 


construction, notably in Silesia, Austria and Hungary. It is 
dealing intelligently and zealously with the problem of reduced 
armaments. It is laboring for international justice, for na- 
tional security, for political and social equilibrium, for peace— 
every one of them of great price in the estimation of France. 
In the work of the League increased precision will come with 
increased practice. We all are going to school in the complex, 
almost baffling, business of giving rhythm to the complicated 
movements of humanity. There is no school of international 
education comparable with that of the League of Nations. We 
have excellent plans; all we need besides—and this is a vital 
need—is a real desire for understanding. It always has been 
my belief, and I hold this opinion more strongly than ever to- 
day, that European reconstruction, with its beneficent reaction 
upon every civilized people, and the peace of the world never 
could be founded more solidly than upon the friendly co-oper- 
ation of France, Great Britain, and the United States. In 
other words, as I stood for the unity of the democracies in the 
war, so | stand for it now.”’ 

Mr. Mowrer and I stepped out into the sunlight of the Quai 
d’Orsay feeling we had been honored with the confidence of a 
very great man—perhaps, all things considered, the greatest 
statesman of the greatest decade in the history of mankind. 


Poincaré the Statesman 
By PAUL SCOTT MOWRER 


HY, the reader may ask, has The Daily News chosen 

W\/ Raymond Poincaré to speak for France, just at a 

time when, in consequence of the recent elections, a 

change of government is taking place in this most powerful of 
continental European countries? 


For three reasons. First, at the moment when Edward Price 
Bell asked for and was accorded what is perhaps the most 
important interview M. Poincaré in a long life of statesman- 
ship has ever given, M. Poincaré was still the Prime Minister 
of France and had held that high office consecutively for two 
and a half momentous years. 


| Page Fifty-seven } 


WO) Rvel aD Ge PAINT Pi Chi oe ech Lees 


Second, there is at present no other statesman in France 
who has anything like the same prestige or who can speak with 
anything like the same authority, particularly in reference to 
foreign affairs. The victory of the Left was nota victory over 
Poincaré. It was chiefly the result of electoral tactics, and in 
so far as it involved doctrines it was a revolt of the electors 
against increased taxes, not against the so-called Poincaré 
foreign policies. Indeed, so great is the prestige which M. 
Poincaré enjoys throughout France, precisely as a result of his 
able conduct of foreign policy, that during the election cam- 
paign the leaders of the Left scarcely dared to attack him, but 
saved their political venom to be vented rather against the 


President of the Republic, Alexandre Millerand. 


Poincaré’s Third, unless I am mistaken, Raymond 
Broad Influence. Poincaré is one of the few very great states- 

men now alive. A well-known English publi- 
cist, Sisley Huddleston, has called him, without exaggeration, 
*“‘the man who has more greatly influenced the course of events 
in Europe since the war than any other continental states- 
man.” The case may perhaps be put in this way: Three men 
in turn have dominated world affairs since the war. First, 
there was the great, misguided and misunderstood figure of 
Wilson, which blazed gloriously for a few brief months out of 
the aftermath of battle, then suffered rapid and complete—if 
not final—eclipse. Next came David Lloyd George to the front 
of the international stage. His magnetism, his vivid oratory, 
his astonishing diplomatic gyrations, held everyone fascinated 
in 1920 and 1921. Then Lloyd George, too, following the 
failure of the Genoa Conference, faded out of the picture. The 
third period, that from January, 1922, to the present, has 
belonged to Raymond Poincaré, and of the three he alone 
seems likely to have the aims which he set for himself and for 
his country stamped by history with the sweet and—in politics 
—rare words, enduring success. 


Long Active Raymond-Poincaré was born in 1860 at Bar- 
in Politics. | le-Duc, in Lorraine, and the defeat of his coun- 

try by Prussia in the war of 1870 made a deep 
impression on his young mind. His father was a civil engineer. 
Raymond was educated in Bar-le-Duc and Paris. He was 
tempted to become a journalist and writer, but finally chose 
the law, in which profession his success was as immediate as 


[ Page Fifty-Eight } 


Ren comedy BO crear Ale se) Fee ee ae IN Co 


it has since been constant. His legal career and his political 
career have been conducted side by side. 

At the age of 29 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies 
and for years he specialized in public finance and budgetary 
questions. At 33 he was chairman of the budget committee. 
In the same year he was made Minister of Education in the 
Charles Depuy Cabinet and he has never since been absent 
long from the councils of the French Republic. He became 
Premier in the international crisis of 1911 and was elected 
President of the Republic in 1913. His eminent services in this 
office during the World War and the Peace Conference need not 
be recalled here. 

In 1920, at the end of his term as President, he re-entered 
the more active political struggle as Senator and devoted him- 
self to educating French opinion in the all-engrossing questions 
of foreign policy, as he saw them. It was because of his in- 
cessantly published and spoken views upon this subject that. 
he succeeded Aristide Briand as Premier in January, 1922: 


Has Rare Physically M. Poincaré is small and squarely 
Personal built and has a square, firm face, a somewhat 
Distinction. scraggly gray beard and a broad, intellectual 
forehead. His demeanor is quiet, courteous, even 
punctilious. He speaks readily and his thought, when he 
speaks, is clearness itself, but his voice is flat and monotonous. 
He is indeed the very antithesis of the conception of a French- 
man which has been popularized outside of France, always 
calm, always cool and collected, rarely if ever gesticulatory. 
Of personal magnetism he has none. His power resides rather 
in his capacity for work, which is prodigious; in his memory, 
which is rare; in his intelligence, which is superior, and in his 
firmness of will, coupled—the conjunction is unusual—with a 
nice sense of realities. Furthermore, he is highly cultivated, 
shunning social entertainment, loathing everything smacking 
of demagogy. Doubtless he would be considered by some Am- 
erican political leaders a hopeless highbrow, but in France that 
has not yet become an obstacle to political advancement. 


Poincaré’s The two principal acts of the Poincaré Ad- 
Outstanding Acts. ministration were the occupation of the 

Ruhr and the summoning of the committees 
of experts whose report, accepted by all the Governments con- 
cerned, will speedily lead, everyone now hopes, to a genuine 


[ Page Fifty-nine] 


Wi Ona Re Le Vai CRIN AAT UNC 0 Ei erie gd Been he Peeve tes 


settlement of the Reparations question. These two acts are 
inseparably joined. It was only France’s victory in “‘the battle 
of the Ruhr’ which made possible the successful conclusion of 
the work of the experts. On this point both the American ex- 
perts, Gen. Dawes and Owen D. Young, are fully agreed. In 
other words, when firmness was required Poincaré was un- 
flinchingly firm; when a time came for moderation and con- 
ciliation it was he who devised the means by which terms of 
settlement generally acceptable might be drawn up. To have 
accomplished either of these would have been notable; to have 
accomplished both is the work of no ordinary statesman. 

I know that by his opponents in both internal and external 
politics, as well as by many otherwise disinterested persons 
who have not had the opportunity to know him and to see his 
work at first hand, or who are accustomed to judge hastily from 
first appearances, an opinion anything but complimentary is 
entertained of Raymond Poincaré. Yet is it conceivable that 
there can really be peace in the world without order, without 
justice, without equity, without respect for the sanctity of 
contracts? I doubt it. And because of this I think that Ray- 
mond Poincaré has been pre-eminently the servant of peace. 
He took the reins of power when France, chagrined and be- 
wildered by the multifarious onslaughts of her determined 
opponents, was weakening. In his own vigorous words, he has 
spared the world the humiliating appearance of fraud trium- 
phant over justice. For this reason, if for no other, I think 
he deserves well of all true lovers of peace. 


| Page Sixty } 


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“RAMSAY MAC DONALD 
SOCIALISM” 


Great Britain’s Former Socialist-Labor Prime 
Minister Outlines His Ideals in Government 


With a Sketch of the Leader of British Democracy 
BY HAL O’FLAHERTY 


‘‘What the World Needs More Than it Needs Any- 
thing Else is a Political and Social Shakespeare.” 


ve 
five’ na 





“Ramsay MacDonald Socialism’”’ 
M: MacDonald was seated alone at his desk in| the 


Prime Minister’s room at the House of Commons when 

I entered. Before him lay a deep pile of Foreign Office 
papers. Tired, grave, intensely preoccupied, he rose, smiled, 
shook hands, turned and drew low a long, wide blind to 
break a shaft of afternoon sunshine that had fallen across 
his mass of documents. We sat down, he looked inquiringly at 
me, and I asked him these questions: 

“What is “Ramsay MacDonald Socialism’? What is it as 
an emotional phenomenon, as a creed, and as a policy? In 
other words, what is it spiritually, intellectually, and prac- 
tically>’’ 

Silent and thoughtful for a moment, Mr. MacDonald, speak- 
ing deliberately, replied as follows: 

“In the domain of emotion, of conscience, in the spiritual 
domain, Socialism isa religion of popular service—a deep en- 
thusiasm for the physical, mental, and moral well-being of the 
human family. In the domain of intellect, of thought, of 
theory, it is a scientific program of social betterment. In the 
domain of practice, up to the present, it is a gradually develop- 
ing educational, legislative, and administrative movement in 
the direction of a realization of its ideals.”’ 


Striving For “Is there anything atheistic or anti- 
Human Betterment. Christian about it?”’ 

“On the contrary, it is based on the 
Gospels. It signifies a reasoned and resolute effort to Christian- 
ize government and society. Who denies that there is an ap- 
palling mass of poverty in the world? Who denies that poverty 
is both an individual and a social evil? Who is not conscious 
that poverty is piteous? Socialism is an enemy of poverty. 
It holds that not charity, but social reconstruction, is the 
remedy for poverty. 

‘Materialism, vulgarity, assertion without sense, domination 
lacking fineness of mind and soul, forgetfulness of human value 
—Christianity hates them all, and Socialism hates them all. 
Socialism would like to make a considerate man, a sympathetic 


[ Page Sixty-three ] 


WOR SLUMDy et ChE nMnENTO-G Mae ta 1 CR a Rate 


man, a generous man, a gentleman, of every man in the world. 
If it could do this, it would make a Christian of every man in 
the world, because these qualities carry us away beyond them- 
selves. 

“Our age is an amazing age, but it is not a Christian age. 
Our conquests are conquests of knowledge; we need the con- 
quests of culture. We have learned to fly physically; we need 
to learn to fly spiritually. Our great achievements have given 
us a temperature. We want cooling off. We want to relearn 
the old lesson of joy in a quiet Sunday. Too many of us regard 
the Sabbath as a day of burden. Too many of us incline to the 
‘brighter London Sunday,’ to the ‘Monte Carlo Sunday,’ to 
the Sunday of frivolity and of spiritual sterility. 


Why Socialism ‘‘Socialism is serious. Socialism would re- 
Is in Revolt. store society to moderation and reflection. It 
is for purity in the individual life, for purity 
in the family life, and for intelligence, honor, and courage in 
politics. We have a shallow world. In it are too many bauble- 
chasers—people mad about ‘honors,’ gold braid, and things to 
hang in the lapels of their coats, and with scarcely a thought 
for the only really important matter—the appetite to do hard 
unassuming work, human quality. Against all this folly Social- 
ism is in revolt. If I can make you understand that, you will 
understand what is, perhaps, the fundamental spiritual fact 
about Socialism. Socialism, radically, is an ardent longing for 
an effectual affirmation of the dignity of humanity—a dignity 
that cannot be dissociated from service. What else is Chris- 
tianity>?”’ 
*‘Socialism, as you interpret it, has no faith in violence?”’ 
“Socialism is sanity, not insanity. It is humanism, not 
brutalism. It must by its nature abhor violence. Pre-eminently 
it is intellectual and moral. It fights only with intellectual and 
moral weapons. It persuades people into its ranks; it does 
not knout or club them in.” 


How Socialism “In the light of this Socialism, or Gospel 
Views Communism. of Labor, how do communism, sovietism 
and such movements either of the Left or 

Right look>?”’ 
“They look bad. They are wrong—all wrong. Socialism is 
the very antithesis of tyranny. It believes no more in a prole- 
tarian dictatorship than in a dictatorship of the so-called elite. 


[| Page Sixty-four ] 


RAMSAY MAC DD O°eN Avie D Oy ines tae La VI 


Socialism would break every fetter that binds the minds or 
limbs of honest women and men.”’ 

“Socialism commonlyis assumed toimply anti-individualism.”’ 

“‘An error—a complete error. Socialists are the greatest de- 
fenders of individualists. They are the only intelligent in- 
dividualists—if an individualist is one who respects individual- 
ity. What is the good of an individualism that does not free 
the individual from conditions that prevent him from being 
an individual? Personal liberty is individualism, and it is the 
only conceivable individualism. Socialism is for real, not 
fictitious, personal liberty. Personal liberty of the real sort 
can come in no way except through a scientific social organiza- 
tion that considers human personality first and above every- 
thing else, and does not enslave it, as is now the case, to the 
owners of the financial and the industrial machine.”’ 


Socialists as “Do you deem Socialists the aristocrats 
Pioneer Thinkers. of political thought>?”’ 

“There is no doubt in my mind that Social- 
ists are doing the pioneer political and social thinking of the 
world. It is one of their characteristics that they have an 
enormous respect for the human mind as contrasted with the 
human fist. Our old parties do not think in any living sense. 
They stand for interests and shibboleths and traditions. They 
are the parties of the status quo and sticking plaster. 

“Erect in the presence of their obvious and admitted failure 
to create a decently ordered civilization, they go on mouthing 
shibboleths. They have not given the world peace. They have 
not given it comfort. They have not given it education. They 
have left much of it ill fed, ill clothed, and ill shod. To millions 
of workers—persons who constitute the foundation of the 
social structure—they have not given tolerable homes, and to 
others in hundreds of thousands they have given no homes of 
any kind. Yet they never tire of assuring us that they are 
commissioned of Heaven to lead and to govern their fellow 
men. And now that I am in office they try to attest their 
virtue by elaborate comments to prove that in five months | 
have failed to undo their generations of rule.”’ 


Characteristics of ‘‘“You believe the Labor Party to be in all 


the Labor Party. respects greater than the other parties?”’ 
“Yes, I do. And I will tell you why. It 


knows more than the other parties know about man as a man, 
[ Page Sixty-five } 


Wi tOv hak aL) C CH WASBNGIC Wt ial eet Beata aes ee 


rather than as an economic unit. It has this greater knowledge 
for the reason that it has been closer to man than the other 
parties have been. Man and his struggles have been the Labor 
Party’s university. Our party knows that when you are deal- 
ing with matters of political economy you are dealing with the 
human soul. Now, the human soul is a very big and com- 
prehensive thing. It is much broader than is Conservatism or 
Liberalism. Only Socialismis wide enough to accommodate the 
human soul. And, unless you accommodate the human soul— 
give it plenty of room—you cannot build a successful society.”’ 

““And why not?” 

““Because you will have failed to capture, you will have failed 
to vindicate, that elusive and inestimable thing—that very 
life-principle of individual and social development—liberty.”’ 


The Poetry of “I have noticed that Sir Robert Horne, a 
Common Life. fellow-Scotsman of yours, accuses you Social- 
ists of poetry.” 

“Right. And no greater compliment could be paid us. We 
are poets. There is no good politics without poetry. There is 
no good anything without poetry. Poetry lies at the heart of 
human life. Every urchin in the street is a poet. Politics 
without poetry is barren and disastrous. It is the incurable 
defect of the old parties that they have no poetic conscious- 
ness. If they had had this magic possession, they would not 
have made such a mess of things, for they would have had 
some conception of the human material with which they were 
dealing. What the world needs more than it needs anything 
else is a political and social Shakespeare.”’ 

“One would gather from what you say that Socialism is 
especially keen on art and the classics.”’ 

“Tt is. It is keen on art and the classics because they are 
humanistic. They humanize man and humanize society. 
Loveliness in all its forms, material and immaterial, comes 
within the sympathy and the faith of Socialism. People need 
meat and drink. They need raiment. They need house room. 
But none of those things is worth while unless people cherish 
and feed their souls. No person and no society can perform a 
more important public service than by patronizing art and 
classical culture. Even if a country has great poverty and 
great unemployment, as, unhappily, our country has, its citi- 
zens should not withhold their money from the purchase of 
pictures, nor from anything else that delights the hearts and 


[ Page Sixty-six? 


RAMSAY MAC DONALD SOCIALISM 


elevates the minds of young and old. It is a cardinal tenet of 
Socialism that if we can save the souls of people we can save 
them altogether.” 


Socialism’s Attitude ‘“‘You refer to Capital inthe role of patron 
Toward Capital. of aesthetics and culture. One has heard 
that Socialism condemns Capital.”’ 

“Another error. Socialists want to conserve Capital. They 
are second to none in their appreciation of its worth. If they 
disliked it, they would let it go on destroying itself. They want 
Capital conserved and saved from abuse. They want it better 
used so that income may be better distributed. They want 
it made servant and not master. And thev look forward to 
sufficient communal wealth to supply all those facilitiessof art, 
learning, and leisure which highly civilized communities require. 

“It is not Capital, it is not wealth, that Socialism condemns. 
It condemns capitalism as we have known it hitherto. It con- 
demns cashism. It condemns the system that involved the 
people of this country in conditions so bad that not only the 
victims themselves, but humanists like Carlyle and Ruskin, 
revolted against it. You will remember those conditions— 
conditions created by the capitalism that came into power 
with the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century—pro- 
duced such great reputations as those of Robert Owen, Lord 
Shaftesbury, and Samuel Plimsoll, who went with all their 
strength to the rescue of the victims. 


Inhumanity “Tt was in those conditions that Socialism had 
of Capitalism. its birth. It was born in England, not in 

Germany; Marx merely devoted his great 
critical powers to its fuller definition—and often misled it. 
I do not deny that capitalism was an improvement on what 
went before. But it is only an epochal feature of progress. 
Moral condemnation is therefore out of place. We have to go 
on perfecting our social life. If we remain where we are the 
domination of capitalism will crush us out. 

“Capitalism, cashism, is unhuman and inhuman. That is 
what is the matter with it. It is unhuman, whereas all the 
great problems of mankind are human problems. Machinery, 
markets, profits—capitalism is obsessed by them. It has not a 
spark of consciousness of the moralities. Mind you, I do not 
say this of capitalists; I say it of the system. To Socialists, 
the workingman—whether he work with his muscles or with 


[ Page Sixty-seven | 


WV On R aia CEDAR ING Garris: ole ys Ree eet a eee 


his mind—is not a mere embodiment of economic potentiality. 
He is not merely the source of a commodity—labor-power and 
skill—to be bought and sold at market rates. 


Not Merely an “‘No; in Socialist feeling and thought, the 
Economic Factor. manual or mental laborer is a human being. 

He is a creature of emotions and ideas and 
a great range of interests and powers wholly outside the in- 
dustrial and economic sphere. We regard every man first.as a 
man and second as an economic factor. This does not mean 
at all that we favor laziness, slackness, low industrial efh- 
ciency, mental and moral slovenliness. Quite the contrary. 
To deal with a man first as a man—and by ‘man,’ of course I, 
mean both sexes—is not only to please him, but to stimulate 
him to the maximum height of his capacities. 

‘“‘Even Toryism, to some extent, learned the political wisdom, 
if not the moral duty, of treating men as men. Great numbers 
of workers have voted for Toryism. Do you know why? Be- 
cause of the socialistic sentiments and acts of Tories. In the 
measure that Toryism combated with success the evils of our 
overaggressive and unfeeling capitalism it won the confidence 
and the suffrage of the working class. In ever-increasing num- 
bers the workers are coming to realize that the true banner of 
enlightened and humane government is not in the hands of the 
Tories. That is the reason the Labor Party is getting more 
powerful every day.” 


Getting Socialism ‘‘Your opponents, I observe, assert that 
Under Way. you are out to destroy the economic ma- 
chine in Great Britain.” 

“Oh, yes; they assert that. They assert a lot of things that 
are false or idiotic. Some of them are ignoramuses and some 
electioneerers. These electioneerers, unable to make further 
use of the vote-catching cry, ‘Hang the Kaiser!’ are making a 
scarecrow of Socialism for their party purposes. They are not 
frightening the country much, and as time goes on they will 
frighten it still less. British Socialists are not wreckers in any 
sense—not destroyers, but builders. They are out to build a 
greater and happier human society in this old home of freedom- 
loving men. 

“We are going to carry out our program, but we are not 
going to do it ‘while the car waits.’ Speaking of cars, you 
know they are not set in normal motion abruptly. One does 


[ Page Sixty-eight | 








Foreign Office, 
S.W.1. 


/S i hes Gree 


RAMSAY MAC DONALD SOCIALISM 


not start a car suddenly unless one wishes to break the machine. 
One starts the engine, releases the brake, engages ‘low,’ and 
lets in the clutch softly. As speed is gathered, one after another 
the higher gears are engaged, until the car is running sweetly 
on ‘top.’ There you have our idea of the way to set Socialism 
running on the highway of political and social practice. How- 
ever much we should like to start on ‘top,’ and instantly be 
off at a merry pace, we know it cannot be done. 


Defending *“‘Some people appear to regard Socialism as a 
Human Rights. brand new thing—an isolated, rigid, fully- 

worked-out, finished thing—waiting to be 
applied in toto all at once. They conceive of it as standing 
behind the wings, completely dressed, elaborately made up, 
ready suddenly to take on the stage the place vacated with 
equal suddenness by a previous actor. It is no such thing. 
Socialism is already on the stage. It already is playing its part 
in the drama of progress. But it is steadily qualifying for a 
more important role. 

“‘Socialism’s work so far has been that of a defender of the 
State, and of the lives of the citizens, against encroachments 
and spoliations by capitalism. Its keen sense of corporate or 
communal morality has been forcing into law such recognitions 
of the rights of men as workmen’s compensation, protection of 
the woman and the child worker, municipal enterprise, the 
co-operative movement in its entirety. It is futile to argue that 
capitalism produced any of these humane reforms. They are 
not its children in any sense or degree. By no possibility could 
it beget such children. In spirit and in principle these reforms 
are as far from capitalism as is Christian civilization from 
savagery. When the capitalist devotes his energy and his 
money to such things, it is not capitalism he is practicing; it is 
Socialism.”’ 


Standing For “What is your attitude to the ca’ canny 
Honest Service. principle?’ 

““T am against it. I am for energy. I am for 
hard thinking and for hard work. Socialism is not the father 
of ca’ canny. Capitalism is the father of ca’canny. It would 
pay only the wages that organized labor could squeeze out of 
it. Labor’s natural tendency was to say, ‘We will give you 
only the service you can squeeze out of us.” There is mutuality 
in human relations. You can have a mutuality of unpleasant- 


[ Page Sixty-nine ] 


Wii O viele ae) CHV AG INS CE EA Tes Fee ie a eae) 


ness and of grudging work, or you can have a mutuality of 
sympathy and of service. It is this latter toward which Social- 
ism is moving.” 

“Would Socialism involve a huge bureaucracy>?”’ 

‘Socialism means a huge bureaucracy only in the minds and 
mouths of those who either misunderstand or choose to mis- 
represent it. We have no notion of running British industry 
from Whitehall. Our form of control is not in the least rev- 
olutionary; our whole conception of changes deemed desir- 
able is evolutionary. Existing arrangements would be followed 
in industry except that the men representing the workers— 
the management, the technicians—would get their jobs by 
reason of demonstrated ability in less responsible posts. Re- 
presentative users, also, would have a voice in management. 
Co-ordination and co-operation would take the place of self- 
regarding competition. 

‘Socialists are not dogmatists. They have no disposition to 
maltreat facts to fit them into theories. We are patient ex- 
plorers and pioneers trying to make roads along which the 
people may go from the less to the more perfect. We may not 
think, and do not think, precisely as did our grandfathers. I 
mean there is a new as well as an old school of Socialism. We 
belong to the new. We have the same vision of human brother- 
hood, the same conception of right, but we have better plans 
for translating this vision and this conception into a going 
political and social concern.”’ 


Opposed to Class ‘‘You have no class consciousness?” 
Consciousness. “‘None. Our opponents are the people of 

class consciousness. They believe in, and 
seek to perpetuate, a privileged class. For class consciousness 
we want to substitute community consciousness. We think all 
the people belong to a seamless society. Any other kind of 
society is relatively weak and insecure. We did not create 
class war. Capitalism produced, and always will produce, class 
war, just as thistles will continue to produce thistles.”’ 

*“Your conception of Socialism is democratic?” 

“Socialism is not only democracy; it is the only democracy. 
Our old parties, the Conservatives and Liberals, are only partly 
democratic. In other words, in their nature, they are oli- 
garchic. They do not stand for rule of the people by the people; 
they stand for rule of the people by a favored section of the 
people. Socialism alone among extant political and social 


[ Page Seventy ] 


RAMSAY MEA Core D OrNgA LD SiO CG MAM ST StM 


theories represents the idea of pure democratic sovereignty. 
No people can be purely democratic until it has perfect con- 
trol over all its interests and destinies. Ungoverned industrial- 
ism, for instance, and democracy are incompatible.” 


Bringing Change ‘‘What was your particular meaning when 

by Development. you stated, in one of your public addresses, 
that a lack of general intelligence prevented 

the Labor Party from doing all it wanted to do for society?”’ 

“Well, the nation needs a lot of educating before it can 
understand and fully accept Socialist principles. It is, indeed, 
a matter of education with all of us. We know perfectly well 
that something very serious is wrong with our social organiza- 
tion; how to put it right we can learn only by study and experi- 
ment. We leaders in the Socialist movement are students and 
experimenters. Scores of government reports on factories and 
mines, on towns, on housing, on the moral and social condi- 
tions of the people, show how great is the national need for 
students and experimenters. 

““Revolution in Russia taught us a great lesson. It taught 
us that revolution is destruction and disaster and nothing 
more. If | may quote from one of my recent articles, the de- 
struction we propose is the sort of destruction which takes 
place when a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis, and the chrysalis 
a butterfly; the same kind of destruction as went on inside 
feudalism when the industrial revolution was being matured; 
the destruction which marked factory legislation, unemploy- 
ment legislation, the invasion of municipal enterprise on the 
field of private enterprise. Our ‘destruction’ is merely that of 
replacing the worse with the better, and doing so scientifically 
and stage by stage.’’ 


Nationalization ‘‘Do you still hold, as you did in 1913, that 
of Lands. nationalization of lands, mines, and railways 
is the best means of curing social unrest in 

England?” 
“That is the next stage in evolution.’ 
“Can nationalization be attained here without awaiting 
similar movements in the Dominions and in other countries?” 
“Yes. We must press on here—sanely, as ] have said, but 
unsleepingly. Bit by bit we must unfold our policy, and get 
for it the support of the electors, for we are working under a 
system of representative democracy. Electors do not vote for 


’ 


[ Page Seventy-one } 


GUO DS J Care! Boy 29 CHW AN CN Gael ky thas WLC Reni eee ware 


abstractions. They do not vote for Individualism, or Social- 
ism, or Christianity. None of these ever can become a true 
political issue. People vote on definite proposals. Socialism 
has definite proposals to bring forward, and only as it wins the 
confidence of the electorate can it put these proposals into 
operation. 

“Our constructive scheme touches all the social interests of 
the population—unemployment, education, housing, agri- 
culture, management of industry, banking and credit, taxation, 
international affairs, and municipal policy. Some of them may 
baffle us at first. We must try again. With all of them we 
shall deal as expeditiously as we can. Nationalization will not 
be carried through with a sweep, as in Russia. That would be 
an antic, and we have no faith in antics. 

**Some industries, like those of the coal mines and the rail- 
ways, are now ripe for nationalization. Land—the use to 
which it is put and the rents derived from it, especially the 
new increments of socially-created land values—is a matter of 
immediate State concern. Money’s power over business and 
politics calls for prompt action by the community, employers 
as well as workmen. Such experiments as that of the Birming- 
ham Municipal bank should be extended, with a State bank in 
supreme control. I am speaking of aims; methods would be 
determined by wise planning and careful experimentation.” 


Socialism Stands ‘*You Socialists are anti-Protectionist>?”’ 
for Free Trade. “Decidedly. So are the British electors, 

as has been shown by every election since 
Joseph Chamberlain launched his Tariff Reform campaign more 
than twenty years ago.” 

“One hears some talk of uneasiness in the Dominions re- 
specting your attitude toward the principle of imperial soli- 
darity.”’ 

“Such talk turns upon the policy of the Socialist Govern- 
ment with reference to inter-Empire Preference and the Singa- 
pore dockyard. In neither case is there the slightest justifica- 
tion for the talk. We Socialists yield to none as believers in 
the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as champions of its 
consolidation and defense. We cannot allow the democratic 
gains of the past to be attacked by any form of barbarism 
without putting up a defense. 

“When the Government of which I am the head decided 
against Imperial Preference, it was thinking of the solidarity 


[ Page Seventy-two } 


RAMSAY MAC DAO UNTAYLS D SOCIALISM 


of the British Commonwealth, and endeavoring to strengthen 
the foundations of that solidarity. We do not believe that any 
Protectionist mechanism whatever will tend to bind the Com- 
monwealth more firmly together. Any such mechanism would 
be constrictive at one point or another, and, as we British 
certainly ought to know, empires are not held together by 
constriction. Protectionist schemes are parasitic schemes— 
schemes to give some one artificial benefits at the expense of 
someone else. We are against them. We are convinced their 
influence would be, not to integrate, but to disintegrate our 
Commonwealth of Nations.” 


Liberty to ‘‘What do you consider the best cement of empire?”’ 
Preserve “Liberty. Its binding power far transcends that 
the Empire. of any system of tariffs within the range of the 

wit of man. To that I add a common human 
purpose.” 

*‘And about Singapore?” 

“With reference to Singapore, I again would emphasize the 
fact that we are co-ordinationists. We desire to co-ordinate 
the defense forces of Britain. We desire to co-ordinate them in 
finance, in policy, and in strategy. We have not a doubt that 
the closest possible knitting together of the British States is 
best for them and best for the world. It follows that our 
decision against an extension of the Singapore dockyard at this 
time—please bear in mind that we already have a great dock- 
yard at Singapore, and the question at issue was one, not of 
building, but of extension—was not at all, in our judgment, a 
decision out of accord with the interests of imperial unity. 

*‘Let me explain it. In the first place, I should say our 
decision was not influenced in the least by the Washington 
naval agreement. That agreement left us quite free to extend 
Singapore. What we did was based on other grounds. Singa- 
pore undoubtedly is a strategic position of immense importance 
in the Pacific. If we were contemplating war we should develop 
it for naval operations of the first magnitude. But we are not 
contemplating war, and we shall not contemplate war unless 
driven co it by external forces over which we have no control. 


Working to “‘We are contemplating peace, and we give 
Maintain Peace. our great world neighbors credit for a 

similar disposition. Naturally, therefore, 
in all we do we wish to furnish every prudent evidence of our 


[ Page Seventy-three } 


Wi tOve Riba CNEL PAIN GE Orla Beer Lee 


pacific desires and intentions. We feel we can furnish such 
evidence, such prudent evidence, in connection with Singapore. 
We feel so after a very thorough exploration of the whole 
question. International confidence and co-operation, reduced 
armaments, and a stable reign of reason in the world—the core 
of British foreign policy—would not have been forwarded, but 
would have been set back, if our acts at Singapore had re- 
flected an expectation of war rather than a hope of peace. 

‘““Are we making a bold move? Some think so. But is not 
world neighborliness worth some risk? Is all our heroism to be 
reserved for war, and none to be exhibited in the cause of 
peace? Besides, the risk is not so terrifying as certain of our 
critics suggest. We have, at any rate, a short time—a limited 
number of years—during which we can be sure no war will 
overtake us. I am persuaded that we should use a year or 
two of this time in endeavoring to establish, or to pave the 
way for establishing, the ascendency of morals over militarism 
in this world.”’ 

“You are an actualist>?”’ 

“Yes. I believe in dealing with situations as they are to- 
day, rather than in elaborating abstractions upon hypothetical 
conditions that may or may not arise a dozen or a score of 
years hence—especially when these elaborations involve heavy 
expenditures of money and retard the movement for dic- 
armament.” 





Striking Hard ‘‘You deem the present moment the right 
for Peace. moment to strike hard for peace>”’ 

“‘Pre-eminently. Immediately after a great 
war, when peoples are full of loathing for war, when they 
passionately yearn for peace, when they are exhausted, when 
they are wise—then is the time to get on with your peace work. 
Memories of war, like many other memories, fade soon. New 
blood arrives on the scene. Old suspicions and fears revive, 
and, almost before you even dimly realize its approach, a fresh 
horror of bloodshed and destruction is upon you.”’ 

“You are a nationalist?” 

‘Heart and soul. There is something very tender and beauti- 
ful in the love of one’s country. But a man who believes his 
wife is the best in his street does not make that a reason for 
fighting duels with his neighbors. I do not believe in running 
nationalism too hard. I do not believe in running it to the 
danger of the general interests of mankind. There is no reason 


[ Page Seventy-four ] 


RAMSAY MAIC DO OON AGU D On Aeris Vi 


for doing anything of that sort. Nationality, fully developed 
and justly guided, is nothing but a blessing to humanity.”’ 


Full Faith “You have unfaltering faith that Anglo-French 

in French friendship will last>’’ 

Friendship. “If I had not, I should despair of the salvation 
of European civilization.” 

“‘Are Anglo-American relations entirely satisfactory>”’ 

“Entirely. And nothing will be left undone by our Govern- 
ment to keep them so.”’ 

“You intend to back up the League of Nations with all your 
personal and official strength>?”’ 

“I do. I hope personally to attend the opening of the as- 
sembly of the League at Geneva in September, and there will 
be other British representatives. It is the intention of the 
French Prime Minister also to attend, and I hope there will be 
many other first-rank statesmen in attendance. It is the pur- 
pose of my Government to use the League as the main instru- 
ment for bringing about those international conditions which 
are necessary to tranquillity, and to all the great human in- 
terests that hinge upon tranquillity.”’ 


Supporting the *‘What is your idea of the duty of power- 
League of Nations. ful nations relative to the League>”’ 

““T think it is their duty to help it. I want 
to see the great peace union complete. It is humanity’s con- 
cern, and no great nation is likely to hold itself morally irre- 
sponsible in a matter of concern to humanity. I do not mean 
that any nation should lose its freedom over the League; | 
mean rather that all nations should exercise their freedom on 
behalf of the League. Britain did not lose her freedom when 
she identified her prestige and energy with the League. No 
member State did. Every nation should help, but help in its 
own way. It is essential to national independence, to popular 
control over policy, that nations do everything they do in 
their own way. But doing things in one’s own way is a very 
different matter from not doing them at all. 

“I think America should help the League, and I think she 
will, in her own time and way. It is not for us to hurry or 
admonish her. Her intelligence and moral force are needed 
in the world. They would be powerful factors for good. Al- 
ready, though not fully and officially, the Republic is watching, 
helping, co-operating, in Europe. I thank her. We do not 


[ Page Seventy-five } 


W LOR. Lee C HAWN? COE aL) Escher 


want her to entangle herself, and so to diminish her usefulness 
to civilization. But we do want to see her great strength and 
authority systernatically and steadily applied to the solution 
of the problems with which are bound up the prosperity, happi- 
ness and peace of the world. ‘How to do that she knows far 
better than any outsider can tell her.”’ 


¢ 
MacDonald the Statesman 
By HAL O’FLAHERTY 


HE genius of Ramsay MacDonald is revealed more fully 

in the interview which he has granted Edward Price 

Bell than in any of his speeches or printed works. Since 

] came to England some years ago, I have heard among all 

classes vaguely worded pleas for a change in a system that has 

failed to fulfill hopes and aspirations. Ramsay MacDonald has 

voiced for his countrymen their desires. He has put into words 
what has been in many minds for years. 

Americans who read carefully and digest this amazingly clear 
exposition of Socialism must be impressed with its universality ; 
for it not only brings to the light the desires of men and women 
here in England, Scotland and Wales, but expresses much of the 
longing for better social and political conditions in every civil- 
ized community. 

It may be said without exaggeration that Ramsay Mac- 
Donald is a statesman of extraordinary ability and at the 
same time the world’s foremost rational Socialist. He is an 
intellectual who, over a period of many years, has trained and 
developed a mind so well balanced, so filled with hard facts, 
that he is capable of meeting fearlessly the great men of his | 
own or other nations. 


Picture of _ Aside from the limitations enforced by partisan 
the Prime politics, Mr. MacDonald has won an unusual 
Minister. degree of popularity for his party and for himself. 

He has no idiosyncrasies of dress or deportment, 
but is possessed of a splendid personal presence whether on the 
floor of the House of Commons or in the rigid formality of 
Buckingham Palace. In his court dress he has the appearance 
of a great militarist, but his demeanor and speech are never 
anything but pacific and democratic. His iron-gray hair and 


{ Page Seventy-six | 


RAMSAY MAC DEGiNvAc ie SOCIALISM 


mustache give a stern setting to his swarthy face, and his 
deepset, dark-brown eyes hold a combative glint. His expres- 
sion is habitually one of effortless concentration, seldom 
lightened by a smile. 

Trained in the best of all schools—the Labor constituencies 
—Mr. MacDonald has mastered the art of public speaking. 
For more than twenty-five years he has been on the platform 
and in the House of Commons perfecting the modulations of a 
naturally resonant and powerful voice. His well-chosen words 
are enunciated with a precision unequaled by any other British 
statesman, with the possible exception of Herbert Asquith. 


The Equipment Though lacking a classical education, great 
of a Statesman. Britain’s Socialist Prime Minister brings to 

his high office a greater first-hand knowledge 
of the British Dominions, Colonies and possessions, than had 
any of his illustrious predecessors. He has toured the Far East, 
studied in Australia and New Zealand, India and Egypt, and 
has visited frequently the principal countries of Europe. His 
knowledge of conditions in Canada and the United States is 
remarkable. Above all else in importance, he knows his coun- 
try’s problems. He has delved deeply into the underlying 
causes of social unrest and with painstaking care has chronicled 
his thoughts upon this subject in books of great breadth and 
clarity. 

Prime Minister MacDonald accepted the opportunity of 
forming a government largely because he considered the time 
ripe to disprove the myriad misconceptions and false ideas in 
the public mind as to what a Labor Government would do when 
it came to power. Great sections of the Tory element were fully 
convinced that a Labor Government would prove a national 
disgrace, while others believed the appearance of a Socialist as 
Chancellor of the Exchequer would bring upon the country 
financial disaster. The world already knows of the praise 
heaped upon MacDonald and his ministers soon after the new 
Government was formed. The praise came largely from the in- 
credulous who in their surprise at finding the country still safe 
became perfervid in their congratulations. 


Five Months Five months have passed since Ramsay 
of Achievement. MacDonald took over from the Conserva- 

tives the task of solving Britain’s domestic 
and external problems, and after a period of groping, complicated 


[ Page Seventy-seven ] 


Wav ce GL seelo CitHy AW NIG VEY Dy Ea Rese ies 


by unexpected changes abroad, he has gone far toward achiev- 
ing the success which eluded his predecessors. As a major 
contribution, he has re-established that sympathetic accord 
with France which disappeared when French troops entered 
the Ruhr in 1923. With the patience and forbearance of a good 
friend he has helped Germany regain her confidence and her 
desire for an equitable reparations settlement. 

In the narrower field of domestic politics he has not fared 
so well. He could not cure in a few months the terrible disease 
of unemployment; nor could he solve the housing problem, 
which nothing but years of patient effort can effect. The 
peculiar circumstances of his rise to the Premiership prevented 
him from acting freely. His party is only a minority under the 
threatening power of the older parties. 

It is likely that a new turn of the political wheel will bring 
a change in the Premiership before the end of this year, but no 
matter when the change comes, MacDonald has had the satis- 
faction of carrying his party’s banner courageously to the fore- 
front of British politics. His name will be written boldly in 
political history as that of the man during whose term of office 
the final steps toward a durable peace were taken by the Great 
Powers of Europe. 


[ Page Seventy-eight | 








COOLIDGE: A SURVEY 


The President’s Mind as Revealed in His 
Utterances, Oral and Written 


‘All These [America’s Achievements] Are But The Reflection, 
Not of a Select Few, But of a Wonderful People, Great in In- 
telligence, Great in Moral Power, Great in Character.”’ 


‘i ray Wee 


a a 


we 
i) Day) 


Osh 


oy Me f 
mre 


a 





Coolidge: A Survey 
ie WAS toward the end of an October afternoon that, 


after passing through a square entrance hall and travers- 

ing a spacious, silent corridor, I was ushered into the Chief 
Executive’s office at the White House. President Coolidge 
sat alone at the Presidential desk. His back was to the win- 
dows that look out over the rear grounds of the Executive 
Mansion in the direction of the Potomac. Neat, quiet, digni- 
fied, medium-sized the figure; serious, even sad, the clear-cut, 
clean-shaven, intellectual face, with its blue-gray eyes, its 
prominent forehead and.§its flat-lying frame of straight, flaxen 
hair, tinged with red. 

Stir and sound—the stir and sound of the White House day 
—were over. Iwo or three young newspaper men lounged, 
chatting in low tones, in the square entrance hall. About the 
inner corridors an occasional colored servant moved noise- 
lessly. Outside the President’s room, itself strangely muffled, 
the slanting rays of the sun, flooding out of the West over fall- 
tinted foliage, threw heavy masses of shadow on the close- 
clipped lawn. 


Intent, President Coolidge was dressed in a well- 
Self-Possessed fitting blue sack suit. His welcome was re- 
Executive. strained, but kindly, a faint smile lightening 


his refined features as he rose to shake hands. 
(It was understood that the President was not to be inter- 
viewed; he declined to transgress the White House tradition 
of no direct quotation of the Chief Magistrate.) One is struck 
instantly by Mr. Coolidge’s self-possession. He makes no 
gestures, does not fidget, looks steadily into one’s eyes, is 
almost disconcertingly intent. 

His voice, though it has a marked twang, is not harsh; there 
is nothing harsh about the man, despite the inflexible will that 
many an opponent has found behind his delicate exterior. His 
words are simple, his sentences crisp—when he stops thinking 
long enough to speak. His facial expression is naturally pleas- 
ant, but his smiles seem even rarer than his words. During 
our entire conversation, after the greeting, he smiled once. 


[ Page Eighty-one } 


Wii Rig ie GH BALAN Gi Bp cL) Logik 2 aes tae 


It was when I reminded him of something John W. Davis 
had said to me—namely, that Republicans, as men of talent, 
are relatively grasping, while Democrats, as men of genius, 
are relatively generous. 

“‘Interesting,’’ said Mr. Coolidge, clearly amused. 

A pause. 

“But I don’t know what he means.” 


Marks of One had heard much of the President’s 
An Orderly Mind. analytical mind, of his industry and thor- 

oughness, of his business-like methods. 
I looked at his desk. It was covered with papers. There were 
many different kinds and sizes. But there was no disorder. 
All appeared to be perfectly classified and arranged, and one 
easily could imagine that singularly calm man and that singu- 
larly clear mind dealing with them swiftly. And then there 
was the striking fact of the President’s coolness and freshness 
after the tumult of the White House day—after the countless 
conferences and close labor of many White House days— 
coupled with the further fact that we sat alone, talking un- 
disturbed, as if the anxieties and strains of the Presidency were 
as far away from Mr. Coolidge as they were when he was in 
his mountain home. 

Did not system speak here? 

Coldness and thinness of personality have been attributed 
to Mr. Coolidge. I did not discover either. His self-command 
is, indeed, remarkable, and his external appearance does not 
suggest a raging fire. But personality does not live in external- 
ities; personality lives within. It is the object of my study of 
this man’s qualities, traits, and views, as disclosed in his life, 
work, and public utterances, to detect and to put in plain 
words what he is like within. It has been said, too, that his 
mind works slowly. This criticism, in my judgment, springs 
from that kind of observation which measures mental velocity 
by verbal fluency. Measured so, without doubt, Mr. Coolidge’s 
mind works slowly. 

As I sat watching the President | was more and more im- 
pressed by his physical slightness and its meaning. Many 
public men, in the problem of achieving success, have the 
advantage of big bodies. Some have the advantage of abun- 
dant whiskers. Some can roar as lions. Some have powerful 
and dangerous fists. Steam-roller superiorities these. Often 
they succeed wholly unaided by either brains or morals. Mr. 


[ Page Eighty-two } 


CFOS OF COL ive Ones Cate eg Ea tyl tt i tANucia, yeh Curd Fenn vanimubesa. is 


Coolidge has not a big body. He has no whiskers at all. There 
is nothing leonine about his vocal equipment. His fists are 
neither powerful nor dangerous. Yet, in a State of strong men, 
rich in political gifts and powers, he rose above all his fellows, 
placed them all behind him, and took and held the center of 
the stage. 

Is not this proof of intellect and character? 


Successes as an Zeal and talent for public service are con- 
Amherst Student. spicuous in the whole of Calvin Coolidge’s 

adult life. He was a political philosopher as 
a boy, and a political philosopher deeply religious and keenly 
ethical. Almost thirty years ago, when a, senior at Amherst 
College, he won distinction in the academic world, and won a 
$150 gold medal by writing, in a contest open to seniors of all 
American colleges and universities, what was adjudged the 
best essay on the causes of the American Revolution. 

This essay, to those who would understand Mr. Coolidge, 
is worth examining. Its diction—there are about 2,000 words 
of it—has the terseness and clarity of the author’s mature 
utterances. Not a line or phrase in it suggests another writer’s 
thought. Original in form and weighty in substance, it de- 
picts the American Revolution as a quarrel, not between dif- 
ferent nations, but between Englishmen devoted to monarchy 
and Englishmen devoted to democracy. 


Consistency of | Puritan and Covenanter himself, Mr. Cool- 
His Career. idge in his prize essay shows how firm is his 
grasp of the meaning of these terms. He sees 

the Puritan and the Covenanter as exponents of the most 
remarkable characteristic of the English-speaking race—its 
will to be free. He notes Englishmen’s “great love for a king,”’ 
but reminds his readers that Englishmen “‘drove out one king, 
rebelled against two and executed three,’ proving that, how- 
ever much they deferred to the “divine right of kings,”’ they had 
a superior regard, on occasion, for “‘the divine right of the 
people.’ His conclusion is that, in the end, this “‘great land 
of America’’ must have achieved its independence, even if the 
colonial policy of George III. and Lord North had been wise. 
Mr. Coolidge’s record is one of extraordinary consistency. 
Not that he is any worshiper of consistency as such. He prob- 
ably agrees with Emerson that “‘consistency is the hobgoblin 
of little minds.’’ He has not worshiped consistency, but he 
has been consistent. He has been consistent because he was 


[ Page Eighty-three } 


Wot Oras Lt Ls CSE AIAN Py Goel Br op Loe ec Seis ote, eed ent 


born prudent, meditative, and far-seeing. He is a child of the 
Appalachians. Ancestrally and in his own life he had time 
and space and quietude to think. Look into his religious 
qualities and propensities, his moral enthusiasms, his concep- 
tions of political science, his administrative methods of a gen- 
eration ago and you find them virtually what they are today. 


Results of Religion Supremely throughout his life Calvin 
and Learning. Coolidge has believed in two things— 
religion and education. In all his thought 
and work he has depended in the past and depends now upon 
Divine guidance. He thinks there is no promise, no security, 
without it. “Our nation was founded by men who came over 
for the sake of religion,’’ he has said. ‘“‘Religion is essential. 
Without the Church the community goes to pieces. I have seen 
this again and again in New England. Our nation cannot live 
without morality, and morality cannot live without religion.” 
Religion and education, in Mr. Coolidge’s view, are in- 
separably related. ‘“‘Who teach the clergy>’ he asks. And he 
replies that the higher education anciently was instituted 
solely for their instruction. He deckares that not only the 
higher sciences, but philosophy, morals and religion all center 
in our colleges and universities. “‘It is not too much to say 
that in them is the foundation of all civilization and that their 
influence is all-embracing.’’ He points out that primary 
schools are a development of higher education, and that with- 
out such education modern society cannot exist. He states 
that we all, with or without the higher learning, come within 
its influence, and that Washington and Lincoln, though both 
lacked a college education, never would have been heard of 
but for colleges. 


Training for All Light on Mr. Coolidge’s spiritual nature is 
an Essential. found in his abiding love for Amherst. Its 

whole inspiration and practice delighted 
him and he places it first among the influences that have 
molded his life. And what sort of an institution is Amherst? 
In the language of its founder, it has, and will not deviate 
from, its “‘original object of civilizing and evangelizing the 
world by the classical education of indigent young men of 
piety and talent.’’ To teach men spiritual values is the basic 
aim of Amherst. “‘And,’’ remarks Mr. Coolidge, “‘the progress 
of this effort measures the progress of civilization; there is no 


[ Page Eighty-four | 


COMA Ee Ue Vic) Shwe tr te ecs seats ~ DA oS. 1 Oy Rt aves Rwy: 


other principle that men of the present day all over the world 
need to keep so constantly in mind.”’ 

Ardent friend and advocate of the classics, Mr. Coolidge 
yet perceives the necessity of trade, vocational, and technical 
schools. He states that the courses of instruction in such 
schools must be pursued “‘with great thoroughness’’—a re- 
minder of this man’s attitude to every kind of task and duty. 
‘‘Equal opportunity of training for all avenues of life,”’ says 
he, “‘is required by a democracy.’”’ He would teach not only 
the preacher, the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer, the chemist: 
not only the artisan, the mechanic, the skilled worker. He 
would teach the youth of all callings and “re-establish the 
profession of teaching in public esteem.’’ He recognizes that a 
great educational system is impossible without devoted, self- 
respecting and capable teachers. 


Teaching People Mr. Coolidge never refers to education 
How to Think. without strongly urging the claims of the 

classics as an indispensable factor. He says: 
“This effort for a practical education will be in vain if we look 
at the practical side alone. Education must teach more than 
the ability to earn a livelihood; it must teach the art of living. 
It is less important to teach what to think than to teach how 
to think. The end sought should be broad and liberal, rather 
than narrow and technical. The ideals of the classics, the 
humanities, must not be neglected. After all, it is only the 
ideal that is practical.’ 

Democracy—American democracy—holds Mr. Coolidge’s 
heart in the sphere of politics. He believes to the uttermost 
in our political forefathers and in our constitutional system. 
He regards our Supreme Court, now under fire from more than 
one direction, as the citadel of American justice—the sheet- 
anchor of our individual liberties. He believes in democracy, 
but in an alert, critical and militant democracy—a democracy 
that understands its birthright and is determined to defend it. 
He points out that selfishness, injustice, and evil are “‘in the 
world and never rest,’’ and that, if our “fairest government on 
earth” is preserved, it will be preserved by the individual 
American, and by him alone. 


Defender of Individualism is at the base of all Mr. Cool- 
Individualism. idge’s political, social, economic, and cultural 

thinking. “‘We have no dependence,” says 
he, “but the individual. New charters cannot save us. They 


[ Page Eighty-five | 


Wie AO Beg se IE, 4B, CNET RA TaN a Cyan ES, TTC mn eos Se Oe 


may appear to help, but the chances are that the beneficial 
results obtained are due to interest aroused by discussing 
changes. Laws do not make reforms; reforms make laws. We 
cannot look to government. We must look to ourselves. We 
must stand, not in the expectation of a reward, but with a 
desire to serve. Politics is the process of action in public 
affairs. It is personal; it is individual, and nothing more. 
Destiny is in you.” 

Government, to be sure, in Mr. Coolidge’s outlook, has a 
wide field of vital service. It must care for the education of 
the people, for their health, for their housing and working 
conditions, for the mentally and physically defective, for the 
weak in their struggle with the strong. All legislation, he re- 
marks, should “‘recognize the right of man to be well born, 
well nurtured, well educated, well employed, and well paid.”’ 
But government, as this observer sees it, should interfere with 
individual liberty—should subtract from the privileges of the 
individual—only to the extent of preventing impingement 
upon the rights of other individuals. Its function is that of 
safeguarding and promoting the social welfare, while main- 
taining conditions of justice and freedom for the individual 
citizen, strong or weak, rich or poor. 


His Admiration Significant of Mr. Coolidge’s feeling about 
for Roosevelt. American politics and American national in- 

terests is his admiration for Theodore Roose- 
velt. What Roosevelt loved Coolidge loves. Hear him: ‘His 
[Roosevelt’s] work goes on. His battle line strengthens. His 
principles have more defenders, his actions more admirers. 
His followers are building a shrine at his birthplace to increase 
the influence of his life. The people whom he loved and trusted 
and served are the contributors. Here men may come and 
remember that he re-established a representative government 
of all the people, reopened the closing doors of opportunity, 
reawakened the soul of his country, and re-enforced the moral 
fiber of America.”’ 

And listen to the President’s final words relative to his great 
predecessor in the White House: “‘Let the people make pilgrim- 
ages to this shrine where his great life began, where Theodore 
Roosevelt learned to kneel in prayer; let them contemplate his 
works and recall his sacrifices, and, out of their pilgrimage, 
their contemplation and their recollection, will be born the un- 


yielding conviction, ‘Greater love hath no man than this’. 


{ Page Eighty-six } 


nA) Cae Lie ok er a ee eet ce YA) nS) Wadia ea waa 


His Defence of Close student of government, both in theory 
Law and Order. and in practice, from early manhood—he 

went almost immediately from law to politics 
—Calvin Coolidge has had a lifelong and uncommonly vivid 
appreciation of the importance of law and order, without which 
there is no government and no civilization. It was this sense— 
this appreciation—which decided his position and gave him 
national renown in connection with the Boston police strike. 
It has been suggested that he was less strong in that crisis, or 
at a certain stage of that crisis, than he ought to have been, 
but those most familiar with the facts believe his conduct left 
nothing to be desired, and the National Institute of Social 
Sciences honored him with a gold medal. 

“It is no accident,’ Mr. Coolidge has said, “‘tnat the people 
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts believe in law and 
order. It is their heritage. When the Pilgrim Fathers landed 
there in 1620 they brought ashore with them the Mayflower 
Compact, which they had drawn up in the cabin of that little 
bark under the witness of the Almighty, in which they pledged 
themselves, one to another, to make just and equitable laws, 
and not only to make them, but, when they were made, to 
abide by them. So that for 300 years that has been the policy 
and the principle of that Commonwealth. And I shall hold 
this medal as a testimony to the service that was begun 300 
years ago and has continued through these generations; and 
in the hope that its example may still continue as a beacon 
light to all civilization.” 


The Stronghold Mr. Coolidge esteems the United States 
of Government. Senate, like the Supreme Court, a liberty- 
conserving institution, and, therefore, a bul- 
wark of law and order in this country. He holds that the Sen- 
ate protects “‘not merely the rights of the majority—they little 
need protection—but the rights of the minority, from what- 
ever source they may be assailed.’’ His reading of the history 
of the Senate is that of a story of wisdom and discretion in 
action for the execution of the public will. He says it functions 
‘“‘without passion and without fear, unmoved by clamor, but 
most sensitive to the right, the stronghold of government ac- 
cording to law, that the vision of past generations may be 
more and more the reality of generations yet to come.”’ 
Educated leadership bears a heavy responsibility in a re- 
public, according to Mr. Coolidge’s reasoning. All men cannot 


[ Page Eighty-seven } 


W Ore Rigber Cy HerARIN Ge cE Lae Us Rohe eS 


have the higher education; those fortunate enough to get it 
owe much to their fellow men. They should both reflect and 
lead public opinion. 

Coolidge is a nationalist. He reveres our nationalists from 
Washington to Roosevelt. He sees in jealous and vigorous 
nationalism nothing prejudicial to intelligent and beneficent 
internationalism. He admires the nationalistic principle that 
‘lay at the foundation of all Washington’s statesmanship.” 
He declares that ‘““where Cesar and Napoleon failed, where 
even Cromwell faltered, Washington alone prevailed. He 
wished the people of his country to be great, but great in their 
own right. He resisted the proposal that he should be set up 
to rule them. He adopted the proposal that they should be 
organized to rule themselves. He carried these principles 
through to the end. He adhered, not to the cause of France, 
nor to the cause of England, but to that of America; and with 
patience and greatness sublime bore the resulting abuse of 
his country for his country’s good.” 

Americanism, in Coolidge’s interpretation, is humanism in 
government. He is all for the idea that the mass is served best 
by serving the unit. If the unit prospers, if the individual feels 
he has protection and the open door, the mass prospers and 
there is national tranquillity. Of government activity affect- 
ing individual initiative and opportunity Coolidge is in- 
stinctively suspicious and critical. That is to say, he is the 
poles apart from Socialism. He thinks Socialism approaches 
human problems—the problems of society—from diametrically 
the wrong direction. In his view, personal freedom, private 
impulse to action, every man possessing inviolate the fruits of 
his industry, are the sure and the only incentives to progress, 
as they are the unmistakable marks of human justice. And 
as the President is for humanism in government, so he is for 
humanism in industry. He declares that “‘industry must be 
humanized, or the system will break down.”’ 


Early Advocate of Liberalism of sentiment on the part of 
Woman Suffrage. Coolidge is evidenced by his early ap- 

proval of votes for women. In this matter 
—and it was an excellent test of the spirit of statesmen—he 
was in advance of many of his contemporaries on both sides 
of the Atlantic. For example, Coolidge favored the franchise 
for women long before Herbert Asquith, outstanding Liberal 
leader in England, threw his weight into the scales for this 


[| Page Eighty-eight | 





THE WHITE HOUSE 
WASHINGTON 


October 14, 1924. 





My dear Mr. Bell :- 

I have received the article which 
you submitted to me. It seems to portray in an 
essentially correct way my views on certain out- 
standing questions and I am willing that you 
should use it in this form as the expression of 


my opinion. 


Very traly yours, 





Mr. Edward Price Bell, 
1439 Maple Avenne, 
Evanston, Illinois. 





Crore cer Lo: Diels Ena te ce eh Yt Sor Uys ey Mey ORES ay 


epoch-marking reform. It simply never occurred to Coolidge 
that women were politically inferior to men, that they were 
less citizens than were men, or that modern society could 
afford to exclude their intelligence and morality from politics. 
There are acute observers who have said that Herbert As- 
quith’s decline as a force in British political life began with 
his opposition to the enfranchisement of British women. 

Demagoguery, so far as one can discover from either the 
speech or the acts of President Coolidge, is alien to his ideas 
of party expediency and to his temperament. Demagoguery 
implies insincerity, and no one acquainted with the President 
suspects him of insincerity. His blood, his deeply religious 
home life, the mountains among which he grew up, the great 
instructors who ministered to his mental and moral develop- 
ment at Amherst, all combined to make him too serious and 
too wise a man to set any store by demagoguery or trickery of 
any kind. 


His Sympathy So, when Calvin Coolidge, for instance, de- 
For the Worker. clares his sympathy with those who work— 

work with their hands or with their brains— 
one safely may take him at his word. He himself is a worker. 
He always has been poor, and he never has tried to get rich. 
His fees as a lawyer were so low as to provoke remark all over 
Massachusetts. Trade-union principles, from the beginning of 
his public career, have had his tangible support. “‘With proper 
co-operation between labor and employers,”’ he once said, ‘‘the 
future prosperity of the country may be doubly assured. 
Human labor will never again be cheap.”’ But he did not 
allow labor to dictate to him. When Samuel Gompers wired 
him to dismiss the Police Commissioner of Boston, he flashed 
back this reply: ““The right of the police of Boston to afhliate 
has always been questioned, never granted, is now prohibited. 
There is no right to strike against the public safety by any- 
body, anywhere, any time.” 

Unbounded pride and faith in America are part and parcel 
of Calvin Coolidge’s character. He sees her “‘steadily march- 
ing on.” To him her history, her services to freedom, are 
‘“‘glorious.”’ ‘““There is,” he remarks, “‘her prosperity. There 
is the wonderful organization of her government, perfected in 
its ultimate decisions to reflect the will of the people. There is 
her system of education, developed in accordance with the 
public schools established in Massachusetts in 1647. There is 


[ Page Eighty-nine } 


Wii LON aD Ci HAIN te ee eee EN ee oes 


her transportation, superior to that of any other country. 
There is her banking organization, richer than any other on 
earth. There is her commerce, which flows to the world mar- 
kets. There is her industrial plant, superior to that of any 
other place or time. There is her agriculture, vast beyond the 
imagination to comprehend.” 


Achievements of | Are these the result of the genius of a few? 
A Great People. ‘‘No,’’ answers Mr. Coolidge. “All these are 

but the reflection of the genius, not of a 
select few, but of a wonderful people, great in: intelligence, 
great in moral power, great in character.”’ 

Adversity seems to this Appalachian thinker a relatively 
innocuous thing from America’s standpoint. It is prosperity 
he fears. Not in lack of power, but “‘in the purpose directing 
the use of great power,’ lies the danger to American civiliza- 
tion, as Mr. Coolidge sees the future. ‘“There is new peril in 
our very greatness,’ he comments. “There are all the old 
dangers in our incompleteness. It is impossible to overlook our 
imperfections. The war has greatly diminished the substance 
of some and greatly increased the substance of many. It has 
already given a new tongue to envy. Without doubt it will 
give a new grasp to greed.”’ 

In the whole of President Coolidge’s private and public dis- 
cussion of America there is an earnest call to high-minded and 
vigorous citizenship. ‘Society in America is in a healthy state 
of progress, but it cannot go alone; it must be supported.”’ 
Turning from the good to the bad in our national life—from 
the bright to the dark picture—the President says: “‘Schools 
we have, but a vast amount of illiteracy. Luxury we have, 
but a wide fringe of degradation and poverty. Great farms 
we have, but there are those who lack food, and amid a flood 
of commerce there are those who lack clothing and shelter. 


Civilization’s “With all the light that comes from learn- 
Need of Support. ing and religion, with all the deterrent 

power of organized society, there is an 
appalling amount of vice and crime. Some say civilization has 
failed. It has not failed, as anyone can see who looks at his- 
tory. It must be supported and continued. It cannot be pre- 
served without effort, and it is not yet done. The work must 
go on. As society grows more complicated, as civilization ad- 
vances, the burden of its support is not less; it is more. It 
was never so great before as it is now.” 


[ Page Ninety } 


Ca ume orp la) DPC eticn wer Acai O52) CORE Var AEs ny 


In The Daily News’ interviews with those great Europeans 
—Marx, Mussolini, Poincaré, and MacDonald—we find one 
note firmly struck by all. It is the note, the principle, of 
sacrifice. These men tell us no society can be splendid, and no 
society can be secure, unless its citizens are ready for sacrifice. 
Calvin Coolidge says: ‘““We need wealth and science and justice 
in human relationship, but redemption comes only through 
sacrifice. There is no other process that can sustain civiliza- 
tion; no other law of progress. If we make any headway 
against the perils of society, it will be by that process. Let 
justice and the economic laws be applied to the strong. But 
for the weak there must be mercy and charity—not the gra- 
tuity which pauperizes, but the assistance which restores. 


The Rewards ‘Failure means that sacrifice was lacking to 
of Sacrifice. secure success. Selfishness defeats itself. This 

has been the malady of every empire that has 
fallen, from Babylon to Russia. Where there has been success, 
it has meant that sacrifice has prevailed. It has been the sal- 
vation of every people from early civilization to the present 
day. America was laid in the sacrifices of Pilgrim and Puritan 
and the colonists of that day. It was defended by the sacrifices 
of the revolutionary period. It was made all free by the 
sacrifices of those who followed Lincoln, and insured by all 
who accept him. It was saved by the sacrifices of the World 
War.” 

Mr. Coolidge affirms that, if we fill our legions with Gauls 
and Numidians and other barbarian tribes—if we do not our- 
selves go out to fight—we shall perish, as Rome perished. 
‘‘Man’s salvation comes out of man. Government can aid, it 
cannot save, man. Civilization is always on trial, testing out, 
not the power of material resources, but whether there be in 
the heart of the people that virtue and character which come 
from charity sufficient to maintain progress. When that char- 
ity fails, civilization, though it “speak with the tongues of men 
and of angels,’ is ‘become as sounding brass or a tinkling 
cymbal.’ Its glory is departed. Its spirit has gone. Its life 
is done.”’ 


The Hopeful Revolutionism, in the Coolidge argument, is 
View of Man. a social menace that can be fought success- 

fully with only mental and moral munitions. 
Overt revolutionary acts—incitements to assassination and 


[ Page Ninety-one ]} 


WiOvsihen kai OH AS NGS) ESD ee ae en ee esi 


violence and actual resort to crime—can be and must be 
punished. They must be crushed under the heel of authority. 
But beliefs cannot be treated so. Every citizen has a right, 
guaranteed by the Constitution, to make up his own mind and 
to express it, so long and so far as it does not signify violence 
toward those who hold different opinions. “If you are going 
to resist beliefs,” says the President, “‘you must meet them, 
expose their fallacy, present the facts which prove them 
wrong.” Mr. Coolidge thinks our extreme malcontents are 
“in the pay of the revolutionary authorities of Russia,’’ and 
he does not dismiss too lightly the peril involved, but he does 
not regard it as “‘genuinely serious.”’ 

“T am of a very hopeful disposition,’’ says the Republic’s 
Chief Executive. You ask him why, and he replies: “‘Because 
I believe profoundly in my fellow-men.’’ His point of view is 
that the great mass of mankind the world over is reasonably 
sane and well disposed. If he did not believe this, as he will 
tell you, he could not have the confidence he has in popular 
rule. There is nothing priggish about the President. Admirer 
though he is of education, of learning, of culture—believer 
though he is in intellectual leadership for all it may be worth 
—he is not one of those who fancy that all wisdom is lodged 
in the cultivated classes. He knows that the soil has a wonder- 
ful way of enlightening those who live upon it. He knows 
that many things concealed from the wise and prudent are 
revealed unto babes. 


Sources of He is far from thinking America ex- 
Material Prosperity. travagantly, or exceptionally, material- 

istic. “‘It is said by some,”’ he observes. 
“that Americans are bent on only that kind of success which 
can be cashed into dollars and cents. That is a very narrow 
and unintelligent opinion. We have been successful beyond 
others in great commercial and industrial enterprises because 
we have been a people of vision. Our prosperity has resulted, 
not by disregarding, but by maintaining, high ideals. Material 
resources do not, and cannot, stand alone; they are the product 
of spiritual resources. It is because America, as a nation, has 
held fast to the higher things of life, because it has had a faith 
in mankind which it has dared to put to the test of self-govern- 
ment, because it has believed greatly in honor and truth and 
righteousness, that a great material prosperity has been added 
unto it.” 


| Page Ninety-two | 


ee OO we Lee) oi Die) Coa ew A ol Sy UO eR Vag eae Y) 


Devout New Englander, Calvin Coolidge is no sectionalist. 
He has made friends in all parts of the country, and not least 
in the South, where his Yankee twang was in strange contrast 
to the Southern drawl. He has spoken in many places, and 
wherever he has spoken he has picked up local knowledge; it 
has surprised not a few of his deputations. 


Basis for Hear him speak of Virginia—the old 
Popular Liberties. Dominion of Virginia—and you feel his 

enthusiasm, as you feel it when he speaks 
of New Hampshire or of Massachusetts. 

*‘No other of our States,’’ he reflects, “is so rich in history 
and tradition. The story of the early attempts at the settle- 
ment of Virginia, of its lost colony, and of the final success 
after failure, is all more fascinating than fiction. It has ever 
been the home of a proud and valiant race of pioneers and their 
descendants, of the early seventeenth century, strengthened 
and dignified by a dominant addition of Cavaliers and Hugue- 
nots, a sturdy and high-minded people, forever jealous of their 
rights and intent upon guarding and maintaining their liberties. 
Virginia, in 1619, assembled the first parliament ever con- 
vened in America. Its House of Burgesses met at Jamestown, 
and, ever since continual, is the oldest of our legislative bodies.”’ 

While pointing out that the informal Mayflower Compact 
of November, 1620, “‘holds a high place among the charters of 
free government,’ Mr. Coolidge states that ‘“‘the first formal 
and authoritative charter which established free government 
on this continent was that granted to Virginia in July, 1621.” 
Dwelling upon the breadth of the Massachusetts mind, Mr. 
Coolidge recalls the words of one of the greatest sons of that 
State, Benjamin Franklin: “‘Above all, Washington has a sense 
of the oneness of America. Massachusetts and Georgia are as 
dear to him as Virginia.”’ And the President adds: “‘It is be- 
cause Plymouth Rock, Bunker Hill, John Adams and Daniel 
Webster represent the nation that they glorify their State. In 
that faith Massachusetts still lives.” 


Strength Lies | Home life, labor and obedience figure promi- 
in the Homely _ nently in Coolidge’s fundamental conceptions. 
Virtues. “Tf our Republic is to be maintained and im- 

proved, it will be, first of all, because of the 
influences which exist in the home, for it is the ideals which 
prevail in the home life which make up the strength of the 
nation. The homely virtues must continue to be cultivated. 


[ Page Ninety-three ] 


Wri Oo Roe a> CE AO NA GERM Le Oi Een LE aanies 


The real dignity, the real nobility, of work must be cherished. 
It is only through industry that there is any hope for individual 
development.’” Among the “grave duties and responsibilities’ 
of those who would preserve “‘the high estate of freedom”’ this 
philosopher continually names obedience. It is the “‘things 
unseen”’ upon which he relies—the eternal moralities. 

Certain of the President’s critics have accused him of per- 
petually speaking in platitudes. He hears this criticism with 
complacency. He refers us to the cynical remark about Roose- 
velt’s rediscovery of the Moral Law, and observes: ““‘What they 
said derisively let us state seriously. Roosevelt did discover 
the Ten Commandments, and he applied their doctrine with 
great vigor in places that had assumed they had the power to 
discard the Ten Commandments.”’ Calvin Coolidge thinks this 
country and every other country need, and never can hear 
too much of, the old but ever-vital principles of individual and 
national character. He agrees with Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
that philosophy and moral passion cannot be better engaged 
than in “rescuing admitted truths from the neglect caused by 
their universal admission.’’ Cynical highbrowism makes a 
very small dent on the present occupant of the White House. 


How Best to Sympathetic toward all nations, and in favor 
Serve the World. of what he deems prudent and effectual co- 

operation with other peoples for the common 
welfare of the world, Calvin Coolidge is vigilant and scrupulous 
to guard the national sovereignty of the United States from 
the incidence of any form of extra-American authority. His 
thesis is that we must be masters in our own house. He is of 
opinion that that way lies an increase of our strength and there- 
fore an added ability on our part to serve the general interests 
of civilization. 

Far from a “pacifist,” he is a steadfast peace man. Our 
record on arbitration, our quarter of a century’s membership 
of The Hague Tribunal, and our long-cherished desire for a 
world court of justice he recalls with gratification. To the 
Permanent Court of International Justice he is committed in 
his first annual message to the Congress, and in his latest pub- 
lic addresses. He supports warmly the arrangements looking 
to peace in the Pacific. Rejecting membership in the League 
of Nations, he has found many w. ys to co-operate with it for 
the benefit of all peoples—notably, in respect of narcotics, 
white slavery and public health measures—and he used his 
[ Page Ninety-four ] 


Ree) One Lc bt tk  Conmeinasniy wi eA 2) Oot Ue f Rie a Visite Ey 


influence to further the Dawes Plan, including the indispen- 
sable financial transactions contingent upon that plan. 

It is interesting and instructive to note that Mr. Coolidge’s 
attitude toward any sort of super-State is in entire agreement 
with the standpoints expressed in The Daily News’ interviews 
with European statesmen. The President announces that we 
do not intend to permit any foreign nation, nor any group of 
foreign nations, “‘to make up our minds for us.’ Chancellor 
Marx, Benito Mussolini, Raymond Poincaré, and Ramsay 
MacDonald use words to precisely the same effect. 

Thus Marx: “‘Peoples are not ready for world federalism— 
for national autonomies related to an overriding central author 
ity, as, for example, the American States to Washington or 
the German States to Berlin. The League of Nations, as I 
understand it, would enthrone reason, justice, and peace, not 
by the crude and ineffectual instrumentality of compulsion 
but by a peace-breeding voluntarism based upon international 
understanding and desire.”’ 

Mussolini, a nationalist of nationalists, is a strong supporter 
of the League of Nations, but only because, in his judgment, “‘it 
can do great things in the world, while leaving the individual 
nations in complete possession of their self-direction.’’ To 
Poincaré the League is merely an established means for “‘the 
friendly co-operation of peace-loving free nations.’’ Suggest 
to this veteran statesman, with one of the most experienced 
and astute legal minds in the world, that France’s internal 
authority is in any way impaired by her membership in the 
League, and you evoke a smile. 

Ramsay MacDonald says: “‘] do not mean that any nation 
should lose its freedom over the League; | mean rather that all 
nations should exercise their freedom on behalf of the League. 
Britain did not lose her liberty when she identified her prestige 
and energy with the League. No member State did. Every 
nation should help, but help in its own way. It is essential to 
national independence, to popular control over policy, that 
nations do everything they do in their own way. But doing 
things in one’s own way is a very different matter from not 
doing them at all.” ; 


The Program Again and again President Coolidge has 
of a President. acknowledged his sense of America’s inter- 

national interests and obligations. His first 
message to the Congress was laden with this sentiment, and it 


[ Page Ninety-five } 


Wa ONG rae CetHeCA TUNIC) A Lee cannes Le eee 


inheres in his view of the fatherhood of God and the brother- 
hood of man. He has spoken of the wide vision of the Massa- 
chusetts mind; it was wide enough to accommodate within its 
understanding and sympathy all the States of the American 
Union. May we not hope that the Massachusetts mind, or the 
Appalachian mind, of Calvin Coolidge, regularly as opportunity 
arises, will bring within its conspectus the whole world, not 
as an object merely of generous sentiments, but as an object 
of concrete measures of helpful fellowship? 

We have examined the spiritual and intellectual background 
—the broad, sustaining emotions and convictions—of the 
President. He is a constitutionalist, an individualist, an econ- 
omist, a tax reducer, a protectionist, an immigration restricter, 
a world court man, an arms limiter, an enemy of aggressive 
war, a world co-operator without official and permanent con- 
nection with international machinery, a pro-agriculturist, and 
an intense American patriot, as he understands American 
patriotism. 


{ Page Ninety-six 








PILLARS OF WORLD PEACE 


The Problem of the Pacific and a 
Formula for International Good Relations 
Discussed by 
MACKENZIE KING 


Prime Minister of Canada 


“Preservation of Tangible Individualities {of Race] Will 
Preserve Those Intangible [ndividualities Which 


Are a Source of Universal Enrichment.” 


ula gs! 


a 





Premier Mackenzie King of Canada 
Wisi: can be done to put the Pacific situation upon a 


basis of settled peace>”’ 

Light upon this question, upon the general ques- 
tion of world tranquillity, upon the nationalistic senti- 
ments and policies involved, upon the spiritual and mental 
attitudes of public men likely, in due course, to affect the 
issue—light upon this intricate and vital congeries of material 
and immaterial problems was sought without bias and with 
entire catholicity of sympathy. 

William Lyon Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Can- 
ada, is one of the constituents—and by no means an un- 
important one—among the human factors of such an inquiry. 
He is such because he is a leader in a vigorous and growing 
modern State with a definite and tenaciously-held point of 
view touching world affairs. Canada has her place, her in- 
defeasible rights, in the Pacific; and she has her living points 
of contact wherever a general conflagration might threaten 
humanity. 


Canada’s Forceful Influential in Canada, and holding a posi- 
Prime Minister. tion of high responsibility there, Mackenzie 

King is of political consequence in a wider 
field. He is so for two substantial reasons, (1) because he is a 
Canadian of authority in British imperial councils, and (2) 
because, as an intermediary or liaison agency—a golden 
bridge—between Britain and the United States, he frequently 
can be of service to all concerned in serious matters of diplo- 
macy. What decisive and weighty forms such service can take 
—the service of wise and well-disposed Canadian statesmen to 
the cause of English-speaking harmony—will be apparent 
when the archives of governments yield their records to history. 

What is Mackenzie King like personally? 

He has had the goodness, in his snowy, picturelike capital, 
dominating the glory of the Ottawa valley and the hills be- 
yond, to receive me and chat at length. Publicity Mackenzie 
King never has sought. Through all his party activities; 
through his remarkable work in adjusting industrial disputes 


[ Page Ninety-nine ]} 


Wt OCR Gael Ce ET atA WN OCs SSA LS ans ae ee Ce ree 


in Canada and in the United States; in his contact with the 
problems of the Orient, his historic fights against sweating, 
abuse of the Canadian immigration laws, the opium traffic and 
other evils—from first to last, in these efforts, which revealed 
a vigilance and energy rare in the civic realm, Mr. King never 
was dazzled by the limelight. 


The Man and My first sight of him was at the door of 
His Surroundings. the House of Commons. It was the hour 

of adjournment at 6 o’clock, and members 
were pouring forth into the main corridors of the parliament 
buildings. Mackenzie King came last, in a brown business 
suit, a modest figure of medium height, solidly built, fair 
complexioned, clean shaven, hair thin on the crown, open 
countenance good humored, sympathetic, and grave. We went 
to his private ofiice—the one he had admired as leader of the 
Opposition and chose to keep when he became Premier, fore- 
going the office intended for the first minister—a compact 
room with an air of elegance, on the walls a series of pictorial 
symbolisms culminating in “‘Vision’’ and “‘Wisdom,”’’ and in 
one corner a marble bust of Laurier, the lamented old Liberal 
chieftain. 

But it was in the Prime Minister’s home—Laurier House, 
Laurier Avenue, a beautiful residence bequeathed to Mr. King 
by Lady Laurier, widow of Sir Wilftid, and charmingly ap- 
pointed and furnished—it was here that the opportunity was 
afforded for a study of the character, ideas and aspirations of 
Canada’s ministerial leader. That first impression of him as 
a man of good-humored seriousness, of sympathy, sincerity, 
occasional gravity, was confirmed. Qualities of this order color 
his whole speech and manner in public and in private—no 
flippancy, no cynicism, no fondness for biting epigram, no 
hint of shuffling or pretense, no uncharity. 


A Student of Mackenzie King is a religious man—an old- 
His Fellow Man. fashioned religious man—who believes, as 
Lincoln believed, in asking the help of God 
when duties are heavy and when the path of right and wisdom 
is obscure or beset with danger. He inspires strong friendships 
without arousing bitter antipathies. Splendor of character, 
heroism, move him deeply, as is attested with beauty and 
power in his book, “‘The Secret of Heroism,” and in his intro- 
duction to a technical volume written by his medical brother 
when the latter was slowly dying of an incurable malady. 


[| Page One-Hundred | 













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“ wh Shh ek 





CANADA 


Ottawa, 
February 24, 1925 


My dear Mr. Bell: 


I have read the article which 
you purpose using as the first of a 
series on Pacific problems. 


You have presented my views 
of the Oriental question in a more syste- 
matic and possibly a more idealized form 
than I should have been able to attempt. 
Your presentation, however, fairly and 
ably embodies the substance of my thought 
on the phases of the problem discussed, 
and you are at liberty to use the article 
in any way which you may think would be 
either of interest or of service. 


Yours sincerely, 


Mr. Edward Price Bell, 
Chateau Laurier, 
Ottawa. 


Hygiene Ade he om OO Wm Wil Oo en Loy ie Rank AD Ca E: 


Science and sentiment, industry and humanity, in Mr. 
King’s view, far from being incompatible, have an essential 
affinity. His education in economics—he obtained a master’s 
degree at the University of Toronto, did postgraduate work at 
the University of Chicago, where he was a resident at Hull 
House and formed a high opinion of the genius of Miss Jane 
Addams; received a doctorate of philosophy from Harvard, 
gained a Harvard fellowship, and pursued his economic studies 
in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy—this scientific 
education, united with his experience in settling more than 
fifty trade disputes in Canada, his ten years’ administration as 
Deputy Minister and Minister of the Canadian Department of 
Labor, and his prolonged study of industrial warfare and prob- 
lems in the United States under the auspices of the Rockefeller 
Foundation, led to the writing of his masterpiece, “Industry 
and Humanity,’’ wherein he shows the correlation of these 
elements, and develops the thesis that industrial peace depends 
upon the fair representation in executive authority of the four 
parties to industry—capital, management, labor, and the 
community. 


His Knowledge of So much for the spiritual, educational, and 
Pacific Problems. temperamental background of the states- 

man whose opinions concerning certain 
world problems this article will try to interpret. In the reality 
and conclusiveness of moral power, it should be remembered, 
he is an unquestioning believer. He sets no store by double 
dealing in statecraft. He believes honesty and the Golden Rule 
are the only standards for decent people in whatever walk of 
life. Ask him if the edge of these weapons can be turned by 
others less bright to him, and he will tell you morality, as he 
tests it, is more finely tempered and sharper than steel. 

““What can be done to put the Pacific situation upon a basis 
of settled peace?” 

Intimacy of touch with the task here suggested came to 
Mackenzie King in the course of some twenty years of official 
life, many months of which were given to special investigation 
of Oriental immigration in Canada, of the social strife resulting 
therefrom in Vancouver, and of related conditions and methods 
in Japan, China, and India. Out of this systematic examina- 
tion of a problem of many aspects, and a problem affecting 
the deepest human emotions, has come a Canadian legislative 
and administrative position enabling Canadians to feel that 


[ Page One Hundred One ] 


Wa sOnmi Reta Ch this Aso N® \Cunb sr  ewiss Ne beta aad 


the Dominion is safe, or reasonably safe, from the danger both 
of too large an Asiatic population and of embittered relations 
with the Orient. 

‘First,’ to throw an interpretation of Mackenzie King’s 
thought into direct discourse, “‘those international relations 
inseparable from the Pacific, if they are to be discussed service- 
ably, must be discussed candidly; and, if they are discussed 
candidly, they must be discussed with a high degree of pru- 
dence and of sympathy. In them, it probably is not too much 
to say, are bound up not only the happiness of mankind but the 
whole course and character of future civilization. 


Value of *‘There is no reason why war should 
Cultural Interchanges. come in the Pacific; there is every rea- 

son why it should not—every reason 
from every angle of observation. Cultural interchange, friend- 
ly, free, continuous, progressive—this, not war, is what the 
Orient needs, and what the Occident needs, in the Pacific. Our 
civilizations, in other words, are not antagonistic, not mutually 
exclusive, but complementary. This is the great fact for states- 
men and for all moral and intellectual leaders to grasp and to 
push powerfully to the front. 

“War in the Pacific would be a cataclysm to our whole 
human heritage. Japan, China, all the nations and races of 
the East, can find means of progress in the West, particularly 
in the sphere of science as applied to human welfare; and the 
West can find means of progress in the East, particularly in the 
spheres of abstract thought and the fine arts. Set up a steady 
and increasing interchange of these reciprocal advantages, and 
we shall have a movement tending irresistibly against those 
sentiments and convictions which, left to drift too far from the 
influence of a true understanding, might issue in war. 


Standards of Living “Critics of the Orient note what tney 
East and West. term ‘lower standards of living.’ What 

they mean, of course, is that the Oriental 
masses are satisfied with less than will satisfy the masses of 
the Occident. Our people demand much in the way of food, 
clothing and shelter. They require a varied diet, have ideas 
of quality and style in dress and like comfortable, well-furnished 
homes. Their wants go far beyond the elementary necessities 
—to gramophones and pianos, to porcelain and glassware, to 
motor cars, to pleasant, healthful surroundings, and indeed to 
everything desirable they can afford. They also demand one 


[| Page One Hundred Two } 


POR Reema, Run su rem ed OU Ti De BAGG aE 


rest day a week, with its attendant features of worship and 
social relationships. 

“All these things cost money, and outlay calls for income. 
Now, if a population of this kind—a population which has 
reached this stage of development as a result of generations or 
centuries of life and effort—finds itself in close juxtaposition 
and competition with a large population of simpler wants, of 
less exacting or fastidious tastes, enmity and conflict are sure 
to result. In such a situation it is economically inevitable that 
the people who are satisfied with less will displace, at least in 
great numbers of positions, the people who demand more. 


Simple Living “If the people with more expensive standards 
and Efficiency. were economically superior to the others— 

sufficiently superior to redress the economic 
balance—then, to be sure, the likelihood of trouble would be 
diminished. But, in the contiguity of Orientals and Occidentals 
in the Western Hemisphere, it well may be argued that no such 
superiority has shown itself. Immigrants from the Far East, 
despite the extreme simplicity cof their customs and tastes, 
generally have had efficient minds and bodies for the perform- 
ance of most kinds of work, and for establishing themselves in 
trade, and consequently have become an economic and social 
pressure terminating in an approach to violence. 

“These so-called ‘lower standards of living,’ representing to 
Western peoples a grim reality, warrant serious thought in the 
Occident, not merely when they are close at hand, but when 
they are thousands of miles away on their native territory. 
In vast disparity of living standards there is the augury of 
nothing but anxiety to those who are striving for amity and 
serenity in the world. Disparity of living standards has pro- 
duced domestic outbreaks; it contains the seeds of international 
outbreaks, because there is an international as well as a do- 
mestic competition, and the larger struggle is engaging a grow- 
ing proportion of the energies of men. 


Equalization ‘What, then, is the lesson of the inequality of 
of Standards. the standards of civilized life? Surely it is that 

these standards, so far as possible, should be 
equalized. If we do not want, as we should put it, to descend 
to the standards of the Orient, let us do all we can to lift those 
standards to the level of our own. How? By maintaining the 
friendliest relations with the Orient, extending our trade with 


[ Page One Hundred Three ] 


We AI Re ass Coe AGS NeUCr EAE asi eet oo ints) 


it, sending out our missionaries, medical scientists, educators, 
and engineers to unfold our way of life to our Asiatic brethren 
—in a word, by spending money, energy, and educational 
ardor in an endeavor to make the Orientals think as much of 
our civilization as we think of it. 

‘Then there is a further way, and an effective one. We can 
welcome the international merchants of the Orient to our shores, 
as we are doing. Wecan welcome more and more their students 
and their intelligentsia generally. Japanese, Chinese, and 
Indian students in our universities are all to the good. They 
are a constantly expanding force for those adjustments and 
assimilations which alone can bring world harmony. The 
United States’ allocation of her Boxer indemnity to attract 
Chinese students to her seats of learning was policy truly en- 
lightened and humane. 


Western Ways ‘‘What have these students done, and what 
of Orientals. will such students always do? They have re- 

turned, and always will return, to China as 
missionaries of the Gospel, and as missionaries also of the ideals, 
culture, and trade of this Continent. Traveling in China, one 
cannot fail to be impressed by the number and variety of 
American manufactures seen on every hand. These articles 
are in trains, in hotels, and in shops—glassware, cutlery, stoves, 
clocks, canned fruits and vegetables. China’s students tell 
China of America’s goods. Great Britain, Canada, all Western 
peoples, well may extend to Oriental students the warmest 
welcome to their universities. 

“‘It might be conjectured that one favoring the closest and 
happiest cultural relations among nations and races must favor 
a slow approach to uniformity. If world unity meant world 
uniformity, world unity would attract many persons far less 
strongly than it does. But unity is not uniformity—consider 
a bouquet, an ensemble of color, attaining a perfect whole; 
consider an orchestra of many instruments and melodies, but 
one magnificent harmony; consider a country, like Canada, of 
countless diversities of river, lake, prairie, and mountain, but 
with a unity, after all, that is Canada, and Canada alone. 


Giving That “Cultural interchange, then—interchange 
Benefits the Giver. of the things of the mind and soul—is good 

for the Orient and good for the Occident. 
We can intermingle in this way, and intermingle to the utmost, 


{ Page One Hundred Four | 


Beem weer tA) Ki mre down (ON RUD et Rg eA Cy CR 


but we cannot intermingle physically on any wholesale or un- 
limited scale without mutual misfortune. Whether we have 
here an immutable truth few probably would venture to say, 
but it is a truth practical observers and lovers of peace must 
recognize as holding the field today. If we achieve tranquillity 
we must solve the problem as among the races of relative bod- 
ily isolation and a wide spiritual and intellectual inter-com- 
munion. Preservation of tangible individualities will preserve 
those intangible individualities which are a source of universal 
enrichment. 

“‘Let no one suppose that any gifts of science, any benefits 
of any kind, moral, mental, or mechanical, passed on from 
the Occident to the Orient, will be lost to the giver. Such gifts, 
such benefits, will return as the years and ages lapse to bless 
the civilization that sent them forth. This is history; it is the 
universal moral law—the principle of the certain return of 
bread cast upon the water. Its working in British-American 
history, for example, is unmistakable. Britian poured her 
science, scholarship, jurisprudence, the essentials of her civili- 
zation, into the New World and into regions more remote, and 
the result was an allegiance of ideas and ideals. This allegiance, 
this comparatively homogeneous civilization, with its citadels 
in the colleges and universities of the Anglo-Saxon world, knew 
where it stood when an ambition of conquest and a formidable 
militarism threatened democracy. 


The Broad Exchange ‘‘What a return we saw of bread cast 
of Benefits. upon the water! We saw the ideas and 
ideals, the culture of which I have 
spoken, take the form of rivers of wealth flowing back to 
Europe, and of millions of men moving from distant shores to 
European battle fields. Great Englishmen, great men of 
British blood, men trained in the schools and colleges of the 
Old World, men taught the incomparable honor of devoted 
public service, had not forsaken in vain home and country 
and comfort and life-long friends to lay the foundations of 
English-speaking civilization around the globe. 

“We of North America, citizens of the United States and 
citizens of Canada, well may recall this background of a history 
we possess in common. It is a permeating influence. It is a 
fertilizing power. It is the silent force that all unconsciously 
keeps us one in aim and purpose, and unites our efforts for 
man’s advancement. We live in a time of unrest. In our 

{| Page One Hundred Five ] 


WY SUA RUSE N aah cetae Celt AGN Cr Rae ae re ee een 


kindred sentiments and ways of reasoning lies our chief hope 
of that solidarity which warrants some sense of safety. 

““This is no time for English-speaking women and men to 
cease casting their bread upon the water. Let the New World 
in its turn pour forth its inspiration and vigor for such service 
as these may render to other peoples, and especially to those 
great and virile peoples across the Pacific. In proportion to 
the impression we make, to the good we do, will be those 
permanent effects which will make for the unification of man- 
kind in the rational pursuit of the happiness due to them all. 
And my conception, as | think I have made clear, is not a one- 
way conception. While we are ‘casting our bread upon the 
water I hope our fellow men of the Orient will be acting 
similarly—that is, teaching us all they can in philosophy, 
ethics, esthetics, and all the arts of civilized life.”’ 


Formula for Peace Peace in the Pacific, therefore, and like- 
in the Pacific. wise world peace, in the opinion of Can- 

ada’s Premier, have two major pillars— 
(1) scrupulous mutual regard for racial and nationalistic vir- 
tues, rights, and susceptibilities; and (2) cultural and com- 
mercial intercourse making for all-around enlightenment and 
an ultimate equilibrium, or approximate equilibrium, of life- 
standards. These pillars, as Mackenzie King reads the out- 
look in the light of all he has seen and thought, can stand only 
through a common and amicable recognition of the principle 
that in the biological, sociological, and psychological situation 
as we have it today general physical or social blending on the 
part of widely different races is destructive of the universal 
interest. 

On the point of courtesy to foreign governments and peo- 
ples—the point of the value of caution and consideration on 
the part of every citizen, and especially of every person 
in a place of public responsibility, in commenting upon or 
handling international and interracial questions—on this head 
Mackenzie King has been uniformly insistent. Throughout his 
inquiries under royal commission into the causes of immigra- 
tion from Japan, China, and India, and into the riotous sequel 
of that immigration, his unvarying civility and fairmindedness 
won the confidence and esteem of Orientals and Occidentals 
alike; his fellow-feeling and sense of justice were color blind. 


[| Page One Hundred Six | 


Peieiseien AL he ome Oe bee We OR De Pak pA CE 


Courtesy in In similar spirit have been conceived all his 
Statesmanship. speeches, State papers, and appeals to Parlia- 

ment. With what effect? With the effect, 
as already indicated, that Canada’s legislation and regulative 
procedure are comparatively unobjectionable to Japanese, 
Chinese, and Indians, though giving what is deemed adequate 
assurance against anything resembling a submergence soon or 
late of white civilization in the Dominion. To explain this 
legislation and regulative procedure in detail would require 
much space. In a nutshell, Canada has kept the bald and 
offensive principle of explicit exclusion out of her laws and has 
narrowed her gates by administrative constriction until she 
has come within approximate complete control of Ait: types 
and numbers of immigrants she wants. 

‘Understand!’ I should call it the paramount verb of 
Mackenzie King’s philosophical grammar. His public career 
has been a sustained effort to understand, to know, to appre- 
hend all pertinent feeling and opinion, pefore decision and 
action. He has read William James responsively. “‘One half 
of our fellow countrymen,’ wrote that philosopher, “‘remain 
entirely blind to the internal significance of the lives of the 
other half.”’ “‘It is so!’’ exclaims the successor of Laurier, and 
the observation illumines for him the whole range of individual 
and social discords, national and international, racial and 
interracial. Mackenzie King puts down to William James’ 
“‘certain blindness in human beings”’ the origin of “‘every dis- 
pute and controversy’ of which he has had any “intimate 
knowledge.”’ 


National It follows that he approves and anticipates 
Individualism beneficial effects from international co-oper- 
and Liberty. ation such as that of the League of Nations. 


He thinks it should be educative and conse- 
quently of use in reducing that “‘certain blindness in human 
beings’” which he has found so evil an influence in industrial 
and social relations. But Mackenzie King would not have the 
League mix too minutely in international affairs. He would 
have it confine its attention to the broadest international ques- 
tions and keep as its sole object the enforcement of the ac- 
cepted principles of sportsmanship, of fair play, in world con- 
troversies. Mr. King is an individualist. Individualism and 
liberty to him are synonymous terms. Domestically, in his 
reasoning, the power of the State should be exercised to “‘keep 


[ Page One Hundred Seven ] 


Wit Oeth ala) GH AN IN Ca ah aoe ea nee Sn 


the ring’’—to see that all classes and all citizens have justice— 
and, internationally, some organization such as the League of 
Nations should perform a corresponding function for indepen- 
dent peoples. 

To the fundamental tenet of democracy—that of each 
nation’s right to shape its destiny—-Mackenzie King is re- 
solutely devoted. For the sanctity of this tenet he has been a 
valiant champion in British imperial council chambers, in dis- 
patches from Ottawa to London, and on the floor of the Cana- 
dian House of Commons. 


World Rule by What he would be unwilling to concede 
Broad Agreements. to the government of the homeland of 

the British Commonwealth of Nations, 
namely, domination of the Dominions, he is not likely to con- 
cede to any centralized authority aspiring to rule the world. 
Rule of the British peoples, says Mackenzie King, must spring 
from a concurrence of policy indorsed by the British peoples 
in their separate and free qualities. Rule of the world, he goes 
on logically to observe, must spring from a concurrence of 
policy indorsed by the world’s separate and several sovereign- 
ties, 

Nor does he see any inherent impracticability in the con- 
ception of world rule based upon national voluntarism. It is, 
in his judgment, all a matter of understanding and of the eye- 
sight born of understanding—all a matter of curing that “‘cer- 
tain blindness in human beings”’ which struck the philosophical 
intelligence of William James and which confronted Mackenzie 
King in every capital-and-labor dispute he grappled with in 
Canada and in the United States. His primary political thesis 
is that humanity as a whole is reasonable, that it is just, that 
it loves orderly evolution, that it is human, and consequently 
that only familiarity with facts is needful to harmony and 
constructive policy in furthering the prosperity and fortifying 
the peace of the world. 


Justice Through ‘‘Democracy”’ is a big word. He who grasps 
Understanding. its full meaning [| think will hold the master 

key to Mackenzie King’s philosophy of in- 
dustry, nationalism and internationalism. He believes precisely 
the same thing about all of them—that they can have order, 


[ Page One Hundred Eight | 


ala LRA oie a eee ORs Di Re Ry MA Gok 


prosperity, and progress only if their theory and practice give 
due recognition to every right and every interest concerned. 
Would you have peace in industry? Then do justice by all the 
parties to industry. Would you have peace in the nation? 
Then do justice by all the elements of your citizenship. Would 
you have peace in the Pacific and throughout the world? Then 
understand the Pacific. Appreciate its realities. Understand 
the world. Make room in your heart and mind for all the 
emotions, all the faiths, all the convictions, all the interests of 
the infinitely diversified multitudes of our planet. Do this and 
then join soberly but with firmness of purpose in support of 
those laboring to construct a skeleton of civilization within 
which these emotions, faiths, convictions, and interests can 
find a commodious and stable home. 

In this last paragraph, to my mind, we have a fairly faithful 
portrait in ethics and in politics of William Lyon Mackenzie 
King, grandson of the famous Canadian rebel and patriot, 
William Lyon Mackenzie, who, if he displayed a certain faculty 
for indiscretion, at least saw clearly the constitutional road of | 
Canadian advance and had the intrepidity to point out that 
road and to call in clarion tones to his compatriots to follow it. 


{ Page One Hundred Nine} 


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MR. BANCROFT IN TOKYO 


Methods and Opinions of the 
Late American Ambassador to Japan 


“Japan, If | Read Her Aright, Will Not Attempt to Ladle 
Broth for Her People Out of the Cauldron of War.” 





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Mr. Bancroft in Tokyo 


LERT, sympathetic, practical, candid, tireless, Edgar 
A Addison Bancroft, though only a few months in Tokyo, 
left an impression upon the Japanese mind as clear-cut 
as it was favorable. It may be doubted whether any other 
man in the American diplomatic service ever accomplished so 
great a moral result in so short a time. His mind was sanity 
itself, his character above reproach, his honesty inflexible. 
Acumen, astuteness, decision, nerve—he had them. But of 
the miserable subterfuge of the old diplomacy he was as inno- 
cent as a lamb. 

There was a great change in Ambassador Bancroft’s appear- 
ance and condition during the eight weeks of my stay in Tokyo 
in the early summer of 1925. When I first saw him at his 
desk, he looked much as he had looked on our last meeting in 
Chicago. He was gray and his face was lined, but there was 
the familiar flash in his eyes, his movements were quick, and 
the grip of his hand was hard. When I saw him finally—on 
Sunday morning, June 7, in his corner suite in the Imperial 
Hotel—his eyes were dull, his movements slow, and his hand- 
clasp slack. 

This conversation is recorded in my diary of that date: 

*‘Mr. Ambassador, I wish you would take the first good 
boat to the States.” 

“Why?” 

‘““Because you are ill.” 

“Do I look ill?” 

“‘T am awfully sorry to say you do, and I feel you cannot 
get well here. You are eating half-cooked vegetables. Be- 
sides, this alien tide is setting strong against you. Ten days 
on a good ship and a few weeks in America will make a new 
man of you. Then you can come back.” 

Bancroft looked wearily at me for some time. 

“Bell, I am not very well. But I am going to the country 
for the summer in a week or so. I[ think I'll get better there. 
Anyway, I can’t leave this job now. I came for two years and 
I must stick to it.”’ 


[Page One Hundred Thirteen | 


Wit) aie a) Co ETAT IN Sato Pe Lohr oS oe 


There was no hint of wavering in his decision. 

Duty was Bancroft’s deity in Tokyo. He went thither under 
a heavy sense of responsibility. And he also went in no in- 
considerable perplexity of mind. Japanese mentality he had 
not studied deeply. He did not know whether he would be 
able to understand it or not. Many suggestions were made to 
him concerning methods of dealing with Japanese officials, 
Japanese personages in private life, the Japanese public, the 
Japanese press, the English-language newspapers in Japan, 
the American correspondents in Tokyo, and the religious and 
business representatives of America in the Japanese Empire. 

“Of these suggestions,” said the Ambassador to myself in 
the course of our first conversation, “‘there was a great quantity. 
They came from persons presumably informed. I| listened to 
and pondered upon them all. It became clear very shortly 
that the doctors were in disagreement. Men of equal apparent 
competence to counsel the newoomer gave mutually destruc- 
tive advice. It was both wise and unwise, it was both vital 
and fatal, for me to say or do this, that, or the other thing. 
Synce there was only a Babel of tongues among the quidnuncs, 
I determined to trust what horse sense I had brought with me 
from Chicago.”’ 

*““And>” 

“‘And—it worked. I went straight to Shidehara and told 
him in the plainest English I could muster what was in the 
minds of our Government and people respecting Japan, and 
what I had come to Tokyo in the hope of achieving. Our under- 
standing of each other was perfect from the beginning. His 
English was as plain as mine. We both wanted the same thing 
—mutual] trust, mutual friendship, everlasting peace between 
our two countries—and we both knew in getting these de- 
siderata practical considerations must not yield to sentimental.”’ 

““You found, nevertheless, that Shidehara feels deeply about 
the discriminatory clause in our immigration law?” 

‘I knew that already. But, if I had not known it, Shidehara 
would have enlightened me. Every Japanese, as a matter of 
course, aspires to equal treatment in principle for his country- 
men by all the nations of the world. From us, if quota it is 
to be, Japan wants the quota, and nothing more. We could 
give her the quota without admitting a single additional Jap- 
anese immigrant of the coolie type, and without admitting 
Japanese immigrants of any sort to a greater number than 150 
a year. Good relations between Japan and the United States 


| Page One Hundred Fourteen 


MUR. BUA @ Na Gah Or ib I N uO a Koay O 


are so important from every standpoint that our law and 
policy are obligated to do everything within reason—every- 
thing consistent with rational consideration for the founda- 
tions of our civilization—to satisfy the susceptibilities of the 
Japanese people and to remove any stigma upon their prestige 
in the family of Great Powers.”’ 

“Is the immigration problem the only one now disturbing 
Japano-American relations?” 

Sistas, 

“You believe the heart of Japan, and consequently Japanese 
policy, to be set on the eventual removal of the discrimination?” 

“Certainly. Not, however, that Japan would be so foolish 
as to make it a casus belli.” 

“Is our attitude throwing Japan back upon Asia and so 
tending to weaken our general diplomatic position in the 
world?” 

“Japan is not turning toward Asia in the sense of turning 
against us, but a policy that gave us Japan’s full confidence 
and friendship naturally would strengthen our general diplo- 
matic position. In other words, the more whole-hearted friend- 
ship we have the better for us in every way.” 

“Is it probable that, if we are obdurately unsympathetic 
toward Japan, an Asian combination of some solidarity will 
result>?”’ 

*‘Japan wants no Asian combination inimical to improving 
relations between her and the Occident. She will not try to 
enforce her point of view by co-operating in any Asian threat 
or pretended threat.” 

*“‘Is soviet diplomacy trying to ‘spill the beans’ as between 
Japan and America?” 

“Trying, but not succeeding, and not likely to succeed. 
Bolshevism’s whole purpose, of course, is a bean-spilling pur- 
pose. It wants to get the beans out of ‘bourgeois’ into bol- 
shevik bags—an aspiration fair enough if divorced from 
brigandage, but hardly tolerable otherwise.” 

“Do you think the Moscow crew is confident of success?”’ 

*“Not so confident, I fancy, as it was, but still keeping to its 
course, and still entitled to serious attention if we prize the 
beans.” 

““What is your estimate of the bolshevik intellect>?”’ 

“I rate it low. It is an intellect minus the king-pin of a 
constructive purpose. It is an intellect full of bizarre conceit. 
Such intellectual vanity as that of the bolshevists cannot sub- 


[| Page One Hundred Fifteen | 


We eR ise OE AA iC VE vel er eels ce 


sist in the same crania with intelligence. There is only one 
field in which the bolshevik intellect can operate dangerously 
and that is the field of ignorance—unhappily a broad one. 
Bolshevism wants watching, not because it is intelligent, but 
because it is incendiary in a world containing a great deal of 
inflammable matter.” 

“Can it make any headway in Japan?” 

“T may be too optimistic, but your question reminds me 
of our old friend the snowball climatically misplaced.” 

“Has Japan any sympathy with reactionary Germany?” 

“‘None. Japan was attracted by Prussianism for a time, 
_ but she found it was unsuitable to her and gave it up, Japan- 
ese aspirations and Japanese political and social thinking now 
run on lines parallel to those of the western democracies.”’ 

*‘Is there any biological reason—any reason of life and death 
—why Japan in her present confines may be dangerous to 
peace?”’ 

“‘Not in my view. Japan is astoundingly resourceful in the 
art of feeding her people. By no means all her arable land is 
under cultivation. Besides, who can foretell what actual neces- 
sity might evolve in unheard-of methods of food production? 
Japan, if I read her aright, will not attempt to ladle broth for 
her people out of the cauldron of war. She is far too smart 
for that.” 

“You feel the decisive mental and moral forces of Japan at 
this hour are for world peace>?”’ 

*“That is my feeling.” 

“You think the talk in America of Japanese aggression 
against the Philippines or Hawaii is idle?”’ 

*“T think it is bosh.”’ 

As I bade goodbye to Ambassador Bancroft on Sunday 
morning, June 7—I was leaving the next day for China and the 
Philippines—I said to him: 

*“What message have you for your friends in Chicago when 
I next see them?” 

“Oh,’’ said the Ambassador, smiling more brightly than he 
had smiled previously at that interview, “‘tell them I am 
happy and busy in the Land of the Cherry Blossom, but, of 
course, always longing to come home.” 


{ Page One Hundred Sixteen | 








JAPANESE VIEW OF 
THE PACIFIC 


Conversation With 


VISCOUNT TAKAAKI KATO 
Chief of the Imperial Japanese Cabinet 


“In External Pigmentation We [the Japanese] Are More 
or Less Different From Other Sections of Humanity, 


But in Internal Pigmentation We Seem to 
be About the Same.” 








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Premier Kato of Japan 


Takaaki Kato, Prime Minister of Japan, as hesat talking 

slowly and quietly in a handsome drawing room of 
English type at the Official Residence, Tokyo. ‘‘Peace and its 
fruits,” thoughtfully went on the calm, long-faced, refined, 
simple-spoken statesman, “‘increasingly and, I believe, with 
growing promise of success, inspire the efforts of governments 
and peoples everywhere.” 

Our special theme was the peace of the Pacific. 

“It touches us, of course, with distinctive intimacy,” con- 
tinued the Prime Minister, taking a cigarette, holding it for a 
moment, lighting it and smoking unhurriedly. ‘‘To the peace 
of the Pacific we Japanese are devoted. We are devoted to it 
ardently. It never will be broken by a wanton act by Japan. 
I see no warrant for prophecies of a warlike initiative in the 
Pacific from any source. Who could contemplate such an 
event without horror?”’ 


‘Pris is a favorite theme with me,” said Viscount 


Peoples Drawing ‘‘You think, then, the cause of peace is 
Closer Together. making headway?” 

“IT do. Its importance is better understood 
than in former tirhes. Last year saw a great improvement in 
international relations. Europe set her feet on the path of 
revival and prosperity. International co-operation and re- 
ciprocal confidence were shown in the unraveling of the tangled 
skein of Reparations. Public men of powerful States added to 
their knowledge of world affairs. Examination of national 
situations and points of view left peoples less far apart in 
understanding and sympathy. Only education of this kind is 
necessary to the consolidation of peace.” 

““What do you think of the Press of the world in relation to 
the struggle for peace?” 

‘I think its power and duty enormous. I am appealing on 
every suitable occasion for journalistic support of the persons 
and the institutions whose aim is peace. Newspapers are 
among the most vital agencies of humanity. Food, water, and 


{ Page One Hundred Nineteen } 


We Omi ORT ASONG SCs Ee ie eek ete 


air scarcely affect human life more widely or essentially, for 
newspapers afford spiritual and intellectual stimulation and 
sustenance for the masses of the world. Pure newspapers, in- 
formed and honest newspapers, generous and fearless news- 
papers, it probably is not too much to say, would insure the 
moral and mental health of nations, and nations morally and 
mentally healthy would have no desire to go to war.” 


Viscount Kato’s Speaking was a statesman and diplomatist 
Wide Experience. of large experience, born of a Samurai fam- 

ily of Nagoya in 1860, graduated at law 
from the Imperial University of Tokyo, trained in the official 
hierarchy of Japan, a Crown member of the House of Peers, 
twice a member of the House of Commons, four times Minister 
of Foreign Affairs, leader of the Kenseikai party formed by the 
late Prince Katsura, and for many years Japanese Ambassador 
to London, where the late King Edward decorated him with 
the Knight Commandership of the Order of St. Michael and 
St. George. 

It was a pleasure to study the man and his personality as 
he smoked and talked. He has the forehead of a thinker. His 
hair is cut rather short and is gray about the temples. He has 
a small gray mustache; otherwise his face is smooth. His black 
eyebrows are silvering at the ends. His eyes are dark, serene, 
reflective, friendly and frequently humorous. He often smiles, 
sometimes chuckles and never makes a gesture of the hands. 
If he has troubles or anxieties he does not show them; there 
is no rift in his composure. Some idea of his nature may be 
gained from his affectionate esteem of Lord Grey of Fallodon, 
whom he regards as a statesman of surpassing sanity and good 
will. 


Japan Wants “It puzzles me that Japan’s peaceful dis- 
Only Peace position should be questioned by any one,” 
with America. said the Viscount. ‘““We enjoyed an unbroken 

peace of three centuries. Its matchless bless- 
ing, therefore, we know. We know how it furthers science and 
art, how it elevates the soul of a people, how it promotes their 
individual and social welfare and what impetus it gives to the 
progress of ordered freedom. War is fatal to ordered freedom. 
This fact Japan understands, and Japan loves ordered freedom. 
War resembles an earthquake. War is, in a sense, an earth- 
quake; it shatters the liberties of men, sets fire to their posses- 


{| Pase One Hundred Twenty | 


PAG TAC IND Pas Ema aie bya W Os OUR GoD hy cht yay Cel bed 


sions, destroys their lives. Japan does not like earthquakes. 
True, she has fought two great wars, but they were wars of 
defense—not a trace of militaristic aggression in either of 
them.” 

‘““What should your Excellency say specifically about Japano- 
American relations?” 

“I should say first, and with all possible emphasis, that 
Japan wants these relations kept on a basis of firm friendship, 
and will neglect no step to that end.”’ 

‘“‘How about our naturalization, land, and immigration 
laws?” 

*“Touching these and all other matters that may come up 
between the United States and Japan, this country proposes 
nothing and contemplates nothing but friendly discussion. 
Friendly discussion is becoming the rule of the world. It is 
educative. It is morally powerful. It is a thousandfold better 
for clearing the international air, for unveiling truth and jus- 
tice, than are the dust and smoke of battle. Japan depends 
upon time, friendship, argument, and conscience to right any 
wrong from which she and other honest nations may suffer. 


Grieved by Certain ‘Certain American laws have surprised 
American Laws. and grieved the Japanese people, allthe more 

because the Japanese long have felt that 
America was a seat of especial friendship toward them. It was 
not a practical thing—the thing which hurt. It was a senti- 
mental thing, and sentiment plays a large part in Japanese 
life, as, I suppose, in the life of every advanced people. Our 
citizens, prizing their exceptional historical ties with America, 
believing themselves exponents of the ideals of the American 
Republic, devoted students of American customs, achievements, 
and culture, and feeling they had won a place in the front rank 
of civilized powers, naturally were shocked and pained when 
they realized that America appeared to regard them as de- 
serving of adverse discrimination among the nationalities of 
the world. 


Japan Wishes to “It was, I repeat, a sentimental matter. 
Keep Its Citizens. Nothing practical upon which we had set 

our hearts had been taken away from us. 
No wide door of opportunity had been closed against us. We 
merely were wounded in our feelings. Our friends had done 
something we did not expect and could not help adjudging 


Page One Hundred Twenty-one |} 


WiiOnR FED Con ARN UC SES ae eee 


unjust. If there was popular resentment in Japan for a time, 
it quickly subsided, for the impression spread that the heart 
of America was not unfriendly to Japan, and that rational dis- 
cussion finally would redress the sentimental balance between 
the two countries. Talk of a league of white nations, presum- 
ably directed against Japan among others, and of American 
naval maneuvers and military intentions in the Pacific dis- 
turbed our people slightly, but that unrest also passed without 
harmful consequences. 

‘Japan remains friendly to the United States and expects a 
favorable issue of all intergovernmental conversations and 
negotiations affecting the permanent relations of the two coun- 
tries. Concerning naturalization, I always have been opposed 
to it—opposed, I mean, to pressing other governments to 
naturalize Japanese subjects. Sentimentally, of course, there 
is an objection to a refusal of naturalization on the ground of 
political origin or of race, but personally I never could bring 
myself to urge something involving the expatriation of my 
fellow-countrymen. I want to conserve our population, not 
open the way for its loss to our Commonwealth. 


Disloyalty of “To anti-alien land laws in Japan I always 
Resident Aliens. have beenopposed. Happily, such legislation 

exists here no more. It never was needed, 
for the excessive dearness of Japanese land precluded its pass- 
ing on a large scale into the hands of foreigners. In Europe 
and America land is sold by the acre; here it is sold by the 
square foot. If there were danger, for example, of a consider- 
able acreage in America falling to the ownership of non- 
American Japanese, or of other immigrants of non-American 
citizenship, I suppose legislation would be advisable to protect 
the native patrimony. But there is only a handful of such 
Japanese in your country, and this handful will not increase 
appreciably. 

““Exaggeration, in our view, consistently has marked the 
anti-Japanese propaganda in the United States. Misleading 
statistics, as we think, have been employed for prejudical and 
alarmist purposes. There has been a false attribution of senti- 
ments and motives to Japanese individuals and to the Japan- 
ese Government. It has been said that in no circumstances can 
a Japanese immigrant, or even a Japanese born in the United 
States, be instinctively and unalterably loyal to the American 
flag. It has been charged in Californian propagandist litera- 


{ Page One Hundred Twenty-two ] 


a eee a ioe oe eee Ve ee Wel On rom thal bee Pre Crh Bora 


ture that the Japanese Government retains control over the 
Japanese in America and countenances their secret disloyalty 
to the country of their adoption or birth. 


Japan’s Attitude “Very earnestly do I wish exaggeration 
Toward Emigrants. and misstatement relative to this ques- 
tion might be avoided. I wish it could 
be discussed with no passion except a passion for the truth. 
That the Japanese in the United States are disloyal to that 
country, or that they are capable of desiring evil in any form 
to overtake it, I cannot believe. And one thing I know: it is 
unthinkable and impossible that any Japanese Government 
should support, or should fail to condemn, any sentiment or 
agitation by the Japanese in America unfavorable to the in- 
stitutions or the welfare of the American people. Such senti- 
ment or agitation would ruin those beneficent relations which 
Japan is resolved to nurture between America and herself. 
“On the question of so-called dual citizenship, I am in 
agreement with American thought. In terms and in fact, dual 
citizenship is an irreconcilable contradiction. Citizenship en- 
joins singleness of allegiance and fidelity. It is perfectly pa- 
triotic, of course, for the citizens of one country to be of service 
to the citizens of another, for benefits flowing across frontiers 
are world benefits, and every nation is a part of our inter- 
dependent world. What I am trying to say is that we all can 
be good world neighbors and at the same time good single- 
allegiance citizens. But, as the world stands, it is impossible 
to conceive of dual citizenship as a practical political principle. 
Japan has abandoned her law in conflict with this view. Japan- 
ese born in America, so far as we are concerned, may elect 
Japanese citizenship; they may not elect both Japanese and 
American. 


Japanese Love ““As regards the question of emigration, 
for the Homeland. our whole attitude—the attitude of the 

Japanese nation—seems to be misunder- 
stood in many quarters abroad. It seems to be supposed that 
millions of our people are eager to leave home. It seems to be 
supposed that our population is so great, and is growing so 
rapidly, that spacious outlets must be found for it in foreign 
lands. There is no justification for this belief. It falsifies both 
the feelings of our people and the conditions in Japan. If any 
nation loves its homeland, the Japanese love Japan—love it 
in general, and love their own special parts in particular. They 


{ Page One Hundred Twenty-three } 


WO SRL ae DD GASEIGAION Oates CE SE Ese law 


not only do not want to emigrate, but do not want to migrate 
from spots where they were born to other places within their 
own country. Japan’s territory, home and colonial, is sufficient 
for her needs for at least a century, and probably two. 

‘“‘Does this mean we have a sparsely peopled country? On 
the contrary, we have a densely peopled country, and our 
population is increasing at the rate of perhaps 700,000 a year. 
In respect of population as related to territory, our position is 
like that of England, Wales, or Belgium. Japan proper, with 
an area of one-twentieth of that of the United States, is the 
home of half as many people—56,000,000—as inhabit your 
immense continental territory, and the total population of our 
Empire is close on 80,000,000. That our national problem, our 
problem of food, clothing and shelter, is a momentous one re- 
quires no statement. 


Japan Able To *‘But we are not appalled by it. And we 
Support Its People. are not driven by it to cast covetous eyes 
upon other peoples’ territories—still less 
to dream of war as a means of solution. We are crowded in 
this island and colonial Empire, but we are far from the end 
of either our room or our resources. It is not altogether a ques- 
tion of how much arable land you have; it also is a question 
of how you cultivate it. Japan cultivates her acres intensively. 
She makes one tan, or a quarter of an acre, feed one mouth; 
she makes an acre feed four. Congestion exists principally in 
the southern and southwestern areas. People can migrate from 
these areas to the north, where there is more room, and they 
will do so when they must; they will not do so before. 
‘*There is ample, if not abundant, opportunity for agriculture 
in Hokkaido, Korea, Formosa, and Japanese Sakhalien. To 
any one or all of these territories our people can and will move 
when the pressure of population and economic need becomes 
strong enough to induce them to leave their homes. We also 
hope there will be opportunities for Japanese farmers in Siberia 
—a contingency dependent upon the settled relations that may 
come about between Japan and Russia. Aside from these 
agricultural prospects, Japanese skill and labor have much to 
anticipate in the way of productive occupation. We can be- 
come more highly industrialized. We can extend our com- 
merce. Our textiles, for instance, already are selling in a wide 
Asian market, and we have our fisheries, forests, and mines— 
all capable of expansion. 


{ Page One Hundred Twenty-four | 


CABINET 


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Pema IN Ee Ser me che aWiee Ohaus HH Ee wy PA rGe bBo 


Conserving the *““My point is that those observers who 
Strength of a Nation. represent Japan, because of her rela- 

tively small productive territory and 
her large and growing population, as a peril to world peace 
either are ignorant of both human and natural realities in 
Japan, or are actuated by studied injustice and enmity toward 
this country. Our people, as to the vast majority, do not and 
never will want to emigrate. If they ask the United States and 
other countries to deal with them on a plane of equality with 
other civilized peoples—and the Japanese would not be Japa- 
nese if they did not ask this—it is not with any purpose of inun- 
dating foreign lands with a Japanese flood. Our people live a 
simple, hard-working life, but a self-respecting life not devoid 
of joy, and they probably are as well satisfied as is any other 
division of the human family. 

“Emigration. We have been discussing it from the Japanese 
point of view—discussing it in the concrete. Now let us look 
at it in the abstract. What does emigration mean? Does it 
mean the integration or the disintegraticn of a people? Does 
it mean a consolidation or a dissipation of national strength? 
On what theory can a nationality perpetuate itself and aug- 
ment its power by scattering itself over the world? To me, in 
such a conception, we have a strange idea of strategy. I am 
against emigration. Only the more daring, enterprising, and 
capable persons are apt to emigrate. To encourage an efflux 
of its best blood is, to my mind, an extraordinary way of 
building up a nation ambitious to play a splendid role in 
history. I wonder if we sometimes do not flatter ourselves in 
fancying that alien peoples long to quit their own shores for 
ours.” 

One enjoyed the twinkle in Viscount Kato’s eyes. 


The Manhood Test “It rather wouia seem,” I ventured to 
in Immigration. remark, “‘that, if Japan fought a foreign 
war to get a place for her people outside 
of Japan, she might be forced to fight a civil war to compel 
them to go and occupy it.” 
“There are many wee more improbable,’ replied the 
Prime Minister. 
‘‘What broad principle, in your view, should lie at the base 
of an immigration policy?” 
“Immigration policies, I think, should take account, not of 
religion or nationality or race or color or geographical distribu- 


{| Page One Hundred Twenty-five } 


Wav Rie CRE AUN a Ge is OL oe eX oe ee ee 


tion, but of intrinsic human merit—dqualities of manhood and 
womanhood, soundness of mind and body, and disposition to- 
ward institutions of law, order, and civil liberty. Japan admits 
the right, even recognizes the duty, of every State to regulate 
immigration within its borders. What we do not regard as 
right, and what we deem ill adapted to promote that inter- 
racial and international good will which permanent peace 
builders so highly esteem, is the principle of discrimination 
among races gua races. To this principle we object. But we 
are not going to make war about it. We merely are going to 
argue about it. War will not set the world right; sincere, 
courteous, well-grounded, illuminating argument may.” 


Japan Doesn’t Want ‘So you are not going to seize the Philip- 
the Philippines. pines or Hawaii?” 

Viscount Kato’s face took on a look of 
hearty amusement. 

“Ethics and prudence apart,” said he, ‘“‘we want neither 
archipelago, nor anything else that is America’s.”’ 

“You have noted the proclamation of certain politicians in 
Washington that the world is to have a new Gibraltar?” 

“esi, 

*“That it is to be in the Pacific?” 

ney (fe 

“That it is to be Hawaii>?”’ 

NN est-« 

“What do you think of it?” 

*‘Domestic matters in Japan leave us no time to deal with 
domestic matters in America,” said the Prime Minister. 

“Officially, Japan never has been worried by the movement 
of American warships in the Pacific>?”’ 

“‘Why should there be any international concern about the 
movement of friendly warships anywhere>”’ asked the Japanese 
statesman. And he added: ‘“‘American warships in the Pacific, 
British warships in the Pacific, Japanese warships in the Pacific 
—we consider them all symbols of civilization and peace in 


the Pacific.”’ 


The Question of ‘There is in America, I think, considerable 
Asiatic Alliances. interest in Japan’s relations with Russia, 

and in speculations respecting what is termed 
an ‘Asian bloc,’ possibly inimical to the best relations between 
Japan and the United States.” 


[ Page One Hundred Twenty-six} 


SPAS LOAN G robe ViEle rain OLR bit) ber At Gale key bee 


“*Asian bloc,’’’ said Viscount Kato, speaking with more 
than usual deliberation, “‘is a phrase with no actual or imagin- 
able correlative in fact. It is a disembodied phrase. It is one 
of those phrases which float about the intellectual world as 
tenuous mists float about the physical world. ‘Bloc,’ in the 
sense suggested, implies some kind of affinity, of homogeneity, 
of structural likeness, as a binding substance among the com- 
ponent parts. There is no such quality or substance for draw- 
ing or holding together an ‘Asian bloc’ of the sort suggested in 
the theory of an Asian aggregation of power opposed to the 
United States. 

“Japan is individual. Her psychology, like her volcanic 
islands, stands apart from the mainland of Asia. We are as 
different from the Chinese as we are from the Americans or 
the British, and who has detected any identity between the 
Russians and the Japanese? If we try to establish neighborly 
relations with China and with Russia, as we always are trying 
to do, it is not because our hearts have turned away from our 
Occidental friends in the Pacific; it is because we believe in 
international amity as a general objective of statesmanship. 
‘Orientation’ is a stock word in the vocabulary of international 
politics. We hear of ‘orientations’ this way and that. If ‘orien- 
tation’ means a tendency toward international reconciliation, 
Japan wishes to ‘orient’ in all directions. 


Commercial Relations ‘‘Our point of view is illustrated by 
With America. the position of England, which looks 
Fast and West. English intercourse, 
political, social, and economic, with the Continent of Europe— 
her friendship with the European nations—does not detach 
her from the Atlantic nor lessen her desire for Atlantic friend- 
ships. Japan has inevitable relations with her neighbors of the 
Asiatic mainland. She is on good terms with China as a result 
of mutual consideration. Urgent territorial, economic and 
social exigencies required a resumption of diplomatic relations 
with soviet Russia, though Japan has no sympathy with soviet- 
ism as a political and social system and will permit no com- 
munist propaganda in this country. I cannot state too strongly 
that our conciliatory and constructive policy toward the Orient 
entails no reverse policy toward the Occident. 
“‘America, particularly, is not a country Japan would choose 
to alienate. Aside from our historical, cultural, and aspira- 


[ Page One Hundred Twenty-seven | 


Wii Othe) COS CAN SINSS§ Cie h Laer Lone ee tte a ame ee 


tional relationships, and aside from our correlation to the 
problems of world society—to all of which Japan attaches im- 
portance—the United States is of immense concern to us 
commercially and financially. She is our best customer—buys 
annually more than $250,000,000 worth of our silk alone. Do 
you think we are likely, in sport or malice, to begin hurling 
shrapnel or high explosive shells at that market? We need 
American capital and are getting it. Could we afford to lose 
the confidence of American wealth? On the other hand, who 
can spend a day in Japan without appreciating Japan’s com- 
mercial value to the United States? American material and 
manufactures form the foundation of our life. Who but a 
madman, American or Japanese, would dream of thrusting a 
sword through this interlacement?”’ 


Co-operation “You do not believe in international blocs>”’ 
by the Nations. ‘‘] believe in a single human sodality.” 
“In the League of Nations>”’ 

“In the master idea of the League of Nations—that of an in- 
quiring, reasoning, justice-seeking world, inflexibly bent upon 
settling its questions .and directing its affairs by moral means 
and not by violence. True, the League takes cognizance of 
matters beyond the range of Japanese interest and knowledge. 
Our people, for example, do not know what or where Riga is. 
But they understand the grand aim of the League—to promote 
the health, prosperity, and peace of the world—and they are 
wholeheartedly for that aim.” 

““You are a nationalist?” 

‘All Japanese are nationalists, and intense nationalists, as 
is the wont of island peoples.”’ 

“You do not believe in a super-State?”’ 

“No. But I believe in independent States working together 
honestly and generously for the common weal. Such work, of 
course, necessitates clear and candid statements of national 
points of view, and no statement of this kind should be taken 
as offensive or as implying a recourse in any circumstances to 
force majeure. In other words, every State should be allowed 
to put forward its case as fully and powerfully as possible, 
without incurring suspicion of a hidden purpose to pass from 
unsuccessful arguments to war. International candor is in- 
dispensable to international understanding and a frictionless 
internationalism.” 


[| Page One Hundred Twenty-eight } 


TAS eA NTE Sule eve be Wao OF Lor Bee Pla; Go TR rin’ 


Culture and “What is your opinion of classical culture 
Sound Leadership. as an aid to the concord of peoples?”’ 

‘“‘Assuming ‘classical culture’ to signify a 
high development of the human mind and soul, I suppose one 
could not exaggerate its worth to civilization. Intelligence and 
sympathy are qualities of inestimable moment. Our world is 
shrinking rapidly through mechanical audacity and _ skill. 
Diverse systems and customs and temperaments are meeting 
at close quarters. Superficial differences tend to create con- 
fusion of thought, irritation, suspicion, alarm. Penetration is 
needful. Fellow feeling, compassion, humanism, are needful. 
But ‘the classics,” in Japan, does not necessarily mean Latin 
and Greek. Our written language, you know, is not by alpha- 
bet, but by ideograph. Of these characters we have some 
10,000, so that our students generally have little time to spend 
upon the Greek and Roman languages and literatures. How- 
ever, our educational ideals are high and our faith in humanistic 
culture second to none.” 

“You favor aristocratic leadership?” 

“‘If you mean leadership by the best—yes. And the whole 
of society can and ought to aspire and strive to be of the best. 
Upon the real aristocracy, the intellectual and moral noblesse, 
of a community, one need not say, rest especial obligations of 
leadership and public duty.”’ 

‘Is Japan becoming more democratic?” 

“Undoubtedly. Possibly our people are disposed to go 
ahead too rapidly. There is little conservatism in Japan—no 
such repugnance to change as is found in England. If a thing 
seems good to the Japanese, they say, ‘Let us adopt it at once.’ 
They are prone to be too quick to reject the old and take the 
new. We now have universal suffrage and shall see how it 
works. If there are dangers, I have no great fears. Predisposed 
to advance swiftly, our people are not destructionists. They 
are loyal to the throne, proud of their traditions, and passion- 
ately devoted to the vision of a useful and honorable place for 
their Empire in the family of free and peaceful nations. 

“Freedom, I think, we understand. We understand it is 
not anarchy or license. We understand, on the contrary, that 
anarchy and license annihilate freedom. This realization is 
imbedded in the Japanese consciousness. Therefore, I am not 
alarmed by the strongly progressive nature of our citizens. | 
am not alarmed by their new enthusiasm for individual liberty 
and responsibility. I am not afraid of universal suffrage. I am 


{ Page One Hundred Twenty-nine | 


W OOVARaL> VTA CERN AC iE eis eae hehe 


persuaded our liberties will deepen our loyalty and invigorate 
our patroitism. For, after all, how can a man be truly loyal, 
truly patriotic, unless he be free>”’ 


Japanese Are “Do you discover, now and again, mis- 
Like Other People. interpretations of Japanese character>?”’ 
Viscount Kato chuckled. 

‘“‘l read in books some interesting observations on Japanese 
life,’ said he. “*I read in English and in American books that 
Japanese babies never cry. Those of us who have Japanese 
babies know better. I read in books that the Japanese people 
are always cheerful. In reality, of course, they are like their 
babies in that when they have something to be glad about 
they are glad, and when they have something to be sad about 
they are sad. We have pleasant and unpleasant people, strong- 
minded and feeble-minded people, wise men and fools, saints 
and rogues. In external pigmentation we are more or less 
different from other sections of humanity, but in internal pig- 
mentation we seem to be about the same.” 

“You believe mankind to be spiritually of one kin>?”’ 


sid Wits spc 


Preserving Japanese ‘‘Do you believe in interracial mar- 
Civilization. riage?” 
“*T do not.” 


‘And your reason?” 

“Because I think the overwhelming weight of advantage 
and happiness lies on the side of racial integrity. Biological 
consequences do not seem to me to be the main consideration. 
It is not chiefly a question of physiology or animality. It is a 
sociological and psychological question. It is a question of 
emotion and mentality, of where and how one lives, of count- 
less associative subtleties. It is a human question.”’ 

“You would preserve Japanese civilization by preserving 
the Japanese?” 

“Yes. We feel our civilization, so preserved, has its own 
distinct value for, and its own distinct place in, the life of the 
world. Japan never will use her power as a weapon of selfish 
aggression—the most stupid act a nation can commit—but for 
the preservation of her Japanese heritage she will make any 
sacrifice. To the perfection of this heritage our sister nations 
have contributed much. These contributions we gladly acknowl- 
edge. Our one desire is to go forward in equal honor with 
those nations, each placing its special gifts at the service of all.”’ 


{| Page One Hundred Thirty } 


DUE AEN ba eae Vallee wen Onn Gk Pie b PoAY Gils aloe 


Mirroring a Our conversation, to me of absorbing in- 
Statesman’s Mind. terest, was at an end. It had been unin- 

terrupted and had lasted two hours. Vis- 
count Kato accompanied me into the large hallway adjoining 
the drawing room and stood smiling and bowing, in the charm- 
ing Japanese way, until I was gone. I felt I had been in the 
presence of a man whose words were a faithful mirror of his 
mind. I could understand why Lord Grey took pleasure in his 
company and had every confidence in his character, and why 
Viscount Kato’s ambassadorial work in England, where he laid 
the foundations of Anglo-Japanese friendship, ranks high in 
the diplomatic annals of Japan. 

How long he will occupy the great position of Prime Minister 
of the Japanese Empire | dare not predict. But I do venture 
the prophecy that so long as he remains Prime Minister his 
acts will not belie the foregoing exposition of his views. Vis- 
count Kato admits that Japan has fools as well as wise men. 
I think he is one of the wise ones. 


Page One Hundred Thirty-one 


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ANOTHER 
GREAT JAPANESE TALKS 


Statement of the Views of 
BARON KIJURO SHIDEHARA 


Japan’s Foreign Minister 


‘Japan Deprecates All Segregative Movements 
Inimical to the Aggregative Interests of the World.” 






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Kiuro Shidehara of Japan 


ARON SHIDEHARA, Foreign Minister of Japan, re- 
B ceived me with friendly dignity in his beautiful private 
room at the Foreign Office in Tokyo. He advanced from 

his desk to meet me and shook hands firmly. 

*“‘I am glad to see you,” said he, smiling like an old friend, 
as he inclined both well-set head and sturdy body—a flash 
at one and the same instant of culture and of force. 

“This racial question between America and Japan is always 
changing,’ said the statesman, speaking in pure English, after 
we had sat down beneath a wide, lofty window. “It is in a 
position now markedly different from that which it occupied 
when I first gave serious thought to it. Do you chance to 
remember what were called the ‘Morris-Shidehara conversa- 
tions’ in Washington>?”’ 

“Very well,” said I. 

“‘Those conversations were carried on with earnestness. 
Both Mr. Morris and myself desired nothing else so much as 
a solution of the Americano-Japanese racial problem satis- 
factory to both parties. Our discussions were without any 
feeling except the feeling of mutual respect and friendship. 
It was said that the problem turned upon the assimilability or 
unassimilability of the Japanese as members of the American 
social community. 


Testing Japanese ‘Touching this question Mr. Morris and | 
Assimilability. agreed that there had not been time enough 
to determine whether the Japanese were or 
were not assimilable in America, as the British and the Scandi- 
navians, for instance, have proved to be in that country. It 
had been scarcely more than a quarter of a century—the ‘Morris- 
Shidehara conversations’ took place five or six years ago— 
since the Japanese entered America in appreciable numbers. 
There had not been time to tell whether they would or would 
not turn out good Americans. 
** ‘How,’ we asked ourselves, “can a reliable test be made?’ 
We agreed that a practicable plan would be virtually to stop 
further Japanese immigration in America until the Japanese 


{ Page One Hundred Thirty-five } 


Wir Dake lid) Oi RHE CAN eat EWG ssy bare e, cD 


already there could be given a chance to demonstrate their 
quality in respect of assimilation into the general American 
social body. At this point | emphasized what I deemed a 
‘substantial condition, namely, that while the test was pro- 
ceeding every encouragement be given the Japanese in America 
to adopt the American standpoint and way of life if they could. 


The Alien Element ‘I pointed out to my American colleague 
in Japan. a grave mistake made by Japan with refer- 

ence to an alien element in our population. 
This element presents a curious analogy in connection with the 
problem of the Japanese immigrants in America. I mean a 
special class of people who are social outcasts. There are said 
to be 1,200,000 scattered over Japan. Their origin is uncertain 
and mixed. Some are descended from Chinese and Korean 
immigrants and some from aborigines. Most of them were 
originally and for generations engaged in tanning and butchers’ 
work, considered by Buddhists to be unclean. 

“T told Mr. Morris about these people, how we ostracized 
them in old days, how we drove them into settlements apart. 
I had seen our people doing it. I myself, as a boy, had had 
my irresponsible part in it. Persons of this class used to appear 
in front of our house and seek work as menders of our clogs 
or wooden shoes. They were not permitted to come inside our 
fence. We threw our clogs out to them, they did their work, 
threw the clogs back, and we tossed the pay into their hands. 
We called them unassimilable, while ourselves denying them 
all opportunity of assimilation. 


The Error of ““‘We made a mistake. Our course was 
Making Outcasts. politically, socially, and economically wrong 

as well as un-Christian and inhuman. These 
persons are now treated in every way as our equals. But the 
antagonism fostered by centuries cannot be swept away in a 
day. They are still with us, still living in their separate com- 
munities, still in their hearts hostile to us, still a problem to 
vex social relations, perplex statesmanship, and grieve hu- 
manitarianism. We should have reached out to welcome them 
and not to cast them away. If we had done that, they long 
ago would have merged in our community beyond all trace, 
and today there would be no irritating problem in Japan such 
as this particular class presents.”’ 


[ Page One Hundred Thirty-six ] 


Tea woaA NEP ope ee Vvanie rene nO we tle rye UAR CAL Aral © 


Baron Shidehara was thinking and speaking carefully, mani- 
festly searching his mind for his real meaning and for exact 
words to express it, imparting to his remarks precision and 
solidity. From time to time he looked into my eyes as if to 
say, ‘Are you interested—do you understand me>’”’ His face 
now and again wore an unrelenting expression, but as the talk 
proceeded I found him capable of smiling delightedly and of 
laughing in that fashion which springs only from the liveliest 
sense of humor. | found also he could relax into simple, easy 
narrative, as will appear later in his story of the colloquies be- 
tween himself and the late Lord Bryce. Thoroughly Japanese 
is Baron Shidehara in physiognomy, temperament, manner, 
and patriotism, tingling with the spirit of today, but ruled by 
deliberation and sagacity. 


American Attitude ‘‘My point of view as expressed to Mr. 
Toward Japanese. Morris,’’ continued Baron Shidehara, ‘“‘was 

that America, in dealing with her Japanese 
population, well might consider our mistake respecting a cer- 
tain part of our population. It seemed to me, and | so stated, 
that an attitude of sympathy, of welcome, of invitation to 
assimilation, might yield a result diametrically different from 
that of an attitude of coldness or persecution or ostracism. 
- Parenthetically, I would say that I personally have been sur- 
prised by what I| have seen in evidence of Japanese assimila- 
bility to Americanism. I have seen in Tokyo a group of 
American-born Japanese children who amazed me by their 
likeness, in dress, speech, and manners, to American children. 
These little visitors of Japanese blood could not speak a word 
of Japanese. 

**Your Ambassador, Mr. Morris,’ the Foreign Minister went 
on, ‘raised two points in criticism of conditions in Japan relative 
to the relations of America and this country. He liked neither 
our law of nationality nor our law of property affecting aliens. 
At that time a Japanese subject, wherever born, remained a 
Japanese subject in the view of Japanese law unless and until 
such subject, by his own act, renounced his Japanese citizen- 
ship and adopted another. Now, under American law, a per- 
son born in America becomes an American citizen without any 
act of his own—acquires American citizenship automatically 
by virtue of birth in the country. 

[ Page One Hundred Thirty-seven | 


WriOr ReLeD Cet WAN FC tare. Let hi omnes eek ee eee 


Doing Away With “It followed, therefore, that American- 
Dual Citizenship. born Japanese inherited two citizenships, 

Japanese and American. Mr. Morris ob- 
jected to this dual allegiance, and his objection seemed to me 
reasonable. His position concerning our law of property I also 
felt able to regard not unfavorably. On my return to Japan, 
and on becoming Minister for Foreign Affairs, I recommended 
to the Diet an alteration of our laws of nationality and property 
in accordance with the point of view urged upon me by Mr. 
Morris. My recommendation prevailed. Our laws were 
changed. As to Japanese emigration to the United States, we 
stopped it in conformity with the terms of the ‘gentlemen's 
agreement’.”’ 

**You then felt,’’ I remarked, “‘that Japan had done all she 
could to clear the way for the test of Japanese assimilability 
in America and to advance toward a complete Japano-Ameri- 
can accord?” 

‘*‘That is how we felt.” 

“‘And what should you say of the American response?” 


When Americans “| will tell you a story,” replied Baron 
Make Mistakes. Shidehara, his air of close thought passing 

and a reminiscent smile breaking over his 
face. ‘“‘] was in Washington when the American Congress took 
action with reference to the Panama tolls question. Lord 
Bryce was British Ambassador to Washington then. On the 
Sunday following the act of the Congress | dropped in, as was 
my occasional wont, to see Lord Bryce at the British Embassy. 
In the course of our desultory talk I said to Lord Bryce, ‘Your 
objection to the tolls bill has been overruled.’ ‘Yes,’ was his 
reply. ‘What are you going to do about it?’ I inquired. 

*‘Lord Bryce looked at me calmly. ‘Nothing,’ said he. 
“There is nothing to be done. There is no use in doing any- 
thing. The American people may make mistakes. They may 
commit injustices. But, in the end, they always of their own 
will put them right. It is in their history.’ On our side—the 
side of Japan—things had not been going as we should have 
wished in California. Indeed, almost at the same time that 
the Congress passed the toll the legislature of California passed 
the anti-alien land law. Presently Lord Bryce said to me, 
‘And what are you going to do about the California situation?’ 
I replied instantly, “We are going to do what you are going 
to do—nothing’.” 


[ Page One Hundred Thirty-eight ] 


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KHt+eaekance Tene Heh eS 


Heo me” NING K” (2 BR 


THE GAIMUSHO Juno 8, 1925. 


TOKIO 


My dear Mr. Price Bell: 


The manuscript which you were so good as to 
submit to me gives an accurate idea of the ideas 
I exoressed to you, and I venture to hove that 
the franimess with which I discussed these ques- 
tions will have a friendly reception from your 
readers. 


It is my firm conviction that through know. 
ledge of each other, our two nations will arrive 
at a sympathetic understanding, the sure foun- 
dation of friendshin. So if this presentation 
of the Japanese point of view proves to be even 
@ Sslignt contribution toward the growth of America's 
knowledge of Japan, I shall be more than gratified. 


Let me take this opportunity also to express 
my appreciation of the spirit of tnis enterprise, 
which has been undertaken by your great paper, and 
my unqualified hopes for its success. 

With best wishes, I am 


Very sincerely yours, 


K Ahitehected 
SG 


Edward Price Bell, Esq., 
The Chicago Daily News. 





PEAT NOR opera Vita rower OLbi Maen: HH Ee tPA Cali Rep 


A Prophecy of After some unfeigned laughter, Baron Shide- 
Understanding. hara continued: “Shortly before the wise and 

delightful British statesman died, we chanced 
to meet again in Washington. He had come over to speak at 
the Institute of Politics in Williamstown. He ran down from 
New York to Washington to call upon some of his old friends 
at the State Department, and we encountered each other in the 
reception room. We had a chat. It was of old times in the 
American capital. Panama tolls came up. ‘You see I was 
right,’ said Lord Bryce. ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘you were right about 
the Panama canal.’ Lord Bryce glanced at me and we smiled. 
‘California,’ said I, ‘still awaits the fulfillment of your pro- 
phecy.’ ”’ 


*‘Do you think history,’ I inquired, “will prove Lord Bryce 
a bad prophet relative to Japan?” 


*‘No,’” answered Baron Shidehara with emphasis. ‘‘We all 
in this country, or certainly those of us who know America, 
retain our confidence in her fundamental love, not only of 
justice, but of generosity. We believe that one day she will 
understand us. We believe that her distrust of us, so far as she 
has any such distrust, will disappear. We believe that a na- 
tional American demand for justice and fairness and neighbor- 
liness toward the Japanese in the United States will sweep 
away all misrepresentation, all misunderstanding, and with 
them all discrimination by American citizens against the 
Japanese within their gates and the Japanese race as a race. 
There will be no trouble about it. Knowledge of facts and 
conscience will do the work. America and Japan will continue 
to stand side by side, with friendly sister nations, as guardians 
of the peace of the Pacific.’ 


Japan's Views ‘You have no ambition to ‘swamp America,’ 
on Emigration. with your people?>”’ 

*‘We have no ambition to swamp any country 
with our people. We do not want to send America a single 
Japanese to whom she objects. That would not be good for 
her or us. It is sentiment and principle and devotion to the 
amity of peoples—not the wish or necessity of emigration— 
that actuate Japanese citizens and the Japanese Government 
in respect of the discriminatory clause in the American immi- 
gration law.” 


[Page One Hundred Thirty-nine | 


WR iT CH. AON GES Deb eR ees 


“It has been reported in America that the ‘real’ Japan does 
not welcome the effort in America to have Japan included in 
the quota. Is this true?” 

“It is entirely untrue.” 

“Is the immigration problem the only important problem 
between Japan and America?”’ 

‘It is the only one.” 

‘Japan will press for the removal of all forms of discrimina- 
tion against the Japanese people by whomsoever practiced?” 

“In a friendly way—naturally.”’ 


Opposed to “Is it probable that obdurate Occidental 
Provocative Alliances. indifference to Japanese susceptibilities 

would issue in an Asian entente of some 
solidarity?” 

“‘No. Such an entente would hold out no promise of what 
we are seeking, namely, all-round recognition of the principle 
of equality for our people.” 

“Would such an entente contravene tendencies toward a 
settled world peace?”’ 

“Decidedly. Japan deprecates all segregative movements 
inimical to the aggregative interests of the world. I mean that 
we are opposed to the development of combinations of powers 
pursuing particular rather than general world aims. Such 
combinations, in our opinion, tend to build up the mental and 
material conditions of warlike conflict. Our conception paral- 
lels the general conception of the League of Nations as we under- 
stand the League.”’ 

*‘Japan’s dominant moral and intellectual forces are for 
universal and permanent peace?” 

‘Beyond all question.” 


On Bolshevists “Do you think Moscow hopes to exploit 
and Bolshevism. Japano-American difficulties favorably to 
its ideas of world-wide communism?” 

“Tf it so hopes, it will be disappointed.”’ 

“Do you think Russian communism really intends, if it can, 
to destroy so-called capitalistic society?” 

“Its constitution, I believe, contains a clause declaring such 
a purpose.” 

“‘Have you any kind or degree of sympathy with the bol- 
shevists?”” 

“Tt is not my province to criticize principles of government 
in any foreign country. I can say, however, that bolshevism, 


[| Page One Hundred Forty | 


TAS EMAL IN ES sie eV ble a Wan OP aslo By ep PeA Ge lobe ic 


so far as | can penetrate it, is utterly repugnant to the elemen- 
tals of Japanese tradition and character. But I am not without 
a certain sympathetic feeling toward bolshevists as distin- 
guished from bolshevism—toward the human beings, that is 
to say, who have sprung this unexampled and puzzling doctrine 
upon the world. Most of the bolshevist leaders are Jews. 
Their blood is the blood of a race long and cruelly persecuted. 
May not an error of judgment of the modern world, and an 
emotion, perhaps, of revenge, run in that blood? 


The Product of “‘Moreover, the Russians now in power 
Age-long Tyrannies. are survivors or descendants of the age- 

long tyrannies of the Czars. Their mem- 
ories are bitter memories. They remember nothing but serf- 
dom, bloody suppression, denial of human right, exile. How 
could they have what we should term a normal psychology? 
How could they be expected to feel anything but terror and 
enmity with reference to those political and economic systems 
which, in their imagination, resemble the regimes of the Czars? 
May they not really believe that we should enslave and exploit 
them, if we could, and that consequently a passion on their 
part to extirpate us is a righteous passion? 

“IT am not answering these questions; I am asking them. | 
do not understand bolshevist mentality. But I never try to 
understand anything without a sympathetic exploration of its 
background. My idea is to seek a cure for the destructive 
pathology of bolshevists, not by withdrawing from them, but 
by cautiously and prudently endeavoring to establish an 
educative intercourse with them. Non-bolshevist nations, | 
need not say, have no wish to wrong Russia, but every wish 
to see her orderly, prosperous, and content, and to have her 
take her place in the peaceful concert of civilization.”’ 


Progressive Forces ‘‘Do you know of any national govern- 
in Germany. ment or organized movement with aims pre- 
judicial to Japano-American friendship?” 
“‘Not now. China gave some evidence of such a disposition 
at the time of the Versailles Conference, but I am aware of 
nothing of the sort in any quarter at present.”’ 
“Is any part of Japan sympathetic with the reactionary 
elements in Germany?” 


*“No, indeed.”’ 


[ Page One Hundred Forty-ene ] 


WitOu Ru GC DH ST AMIN FC we Enh on ioe saree an 


“Do you anticipate any reactionary revival in Germany 
from Hindenburg’s election?” 

““No. My belief is that Germany will persist in the path of 
democracy and peace.”’ 

“Is Japan satisfied with the principle of the Open Door in 
China>”’ 

*‘That principle cannot be too strictly enforced to suit us.’ 

*“‘It gives you natural advantages?” 

“It gives us great natural advantages. Besides, it accords 
with our idea both of justice to China and of the universal 
welfare. International grasping for selfish advantage in China 
would threaten humanity with an immeasurable disaster.”’ 


Labor’s “Is Japan free from the menace of internal 
International subversive agitation?” 
Interest. “Not free from it, but, I think, not seriously 


threatened, nor more threatened than any other 
great State. Government everywhere, of course, is beset with 
new problems in our growingly complex modern political and 
social existence. For instance, international labor attractions 
are a fresh concern of government. For the first time in Japan 
we have had a delegation from Japanese labor visiting the 
Foreign Office to protest against our measures for preserving 
order and protecting the rights of our nationals in China. Our 
reply was that we were not interfering in the strikes as econ- 
omic struggles but as developments dangerous to life and 
property. It is a new thing with us—this sign of local labor 
unrest without the faintest practical local interest. But we 
are not alarmed over it. I merely mention it as an illustration 
of the increasing weight of public-order burdens in every part 
of the world.” 


Friendship of the Our last words—the last words of an inter- 
Pacific Powers. view that had occupied the best part of two 

hours—were relative to the Pacific. As we 
shook hands at parting, I said to Baron Shidehara: 

“I may state that Japan values exceptionally an entente 
with the principal Occidental Pacific powers>?”’ 

“You may state that with every assurance of accuracy. 
How highly I personally reckon an entente with the principal 
Occidental Pacific powers is reflected in my pride that I had a 
part in drafting the Four-Power Treaty at the Washington 
Conference.” 


[ Page One Hundred Forty-two | 


eee eA CUNY Eo ae Vig Lacuna foo Qtr Cc Pl 2 Es een oA Can lar Le 


Baron Kijuro Shidehara, born in Osaka prefecture, aged 54, 
was graduated from the college of law of the Tokyo Imperial 
University. Entering the Foreign Office in 1896, he rose rung 
by rung until he became Foreign Minister in June, 1924. His 
diplomatic career has been long and honorable. In various 
capacities he has served in Washington, London, Antwerp, and 
The Hague. From 1915 to 1919 he was Vice-Minister for Foreign 
Affairs. From 1919 to 1922 he won his great popularity at 
Washington as Japanese Ambassador to the United States. 
His barony was the reward of his services in the Great War. 


[ Page One Hundred Forty-three | 





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FUTURE OF THE PHILIPPINES 


Interviews with 


MANUEL QUEZON 
President of the Philippine Senate 


SERGIO OSMENA 
Senator and ex-Speaker of the 
Philippine Lower House 


MAJ.-GEN. LEONARD WOOD 
Governor General of the Philippines 


“As It Is Deadly to an Individual to Lack Liberty, Reasonable Lib- 
erty, the Liberty Stopping Only at the Boundary of the Liberty of 
Others, SoIltIs Deadly foraNationto Lack That LibertyWhich Stops 
Only at the Boundary of the Liberty of other Nations.’’—Quezon. 


**Both Life and Liberty Would be Perfectly Safe Under Filipino Sov- 
ereignty. We Have Proved Our Capacity to Govern.’’—Osmena. 


“It Is Intolerable That an Uneducated Electorate, Harangued by 
Political Aspirants to Power and Emolument, Should Frustrate 
America’s Long, Laborious, and Expensive Struggle to Build a 
Firmly-Based Christian State in the Philippines, and Also Jar the 
Delicate Interracial and International Balance in the Pacific 


Inimically to the Cause of World Peace.’’—Leonard Wood. 

















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Rae 


Manuel L. Quezon 


i) OU want complete and immediate independence for the 

Y Philippines>’’ I remarked to President Manuel L. Que- 

zon of the Philippine Senate, perhaps the most influential 
Filipino leader at the present time. 

““Yes,’” was the reply. 

“You see no danger to the Philippines or the peace of the 
Pacific and the world in a withdrawal of the United States 
from the archipelago and its waters?” 

“‘None. On the contrary, I think untrammeled statehood 
for the Philippines would reinforce peace influences in the 
Pacific and elsewhere.” 

“You should expect no aggression against the islands from 
any source?’ 

“‘Not from any source. When people talk about warlike 
movements against a free Philippines, they have in mind just 
one nation. They do not mean Russia or China or France or 
England. They mean Japan. Let us, therefore, consider the 
question of what Japan might be expected to do if the Philip- 
pines were liberated and left to their own resources. I will say . 
at once that Japan, in my opinion, would not dream of any 
hostile act toward us and I will explain why I think so. 


Japan's “In the first place, I believe Japan to be 
Peaceful Purposes. nonaggressive. I believe both her heart 

and her mind urge her to international 
peace. I am convinced she sees no profit, only universal dis- 
aster, in war. Japan will fight, if I understand her, only to 
preserve her national security and to defend those rights and 
interests which seem to her indispensable to her liberty and 
life. Such rights and interests do not beckon her far afield; 
they lie within the circumference of her natural and legitimate 
position in the Far East. 

“But, for the sake of argument, let us suppose that Japan 
is not peaceful, but warlike. Even then the Philippines would 
be of very little use, if any, to her unless she contemplated 
hostile operations against the United States or Australia, and 


[| Page One Hundred Forty-seven } 


Wi Orr issolD GOED SA SINC es, LL Lote es a a 


every student of Japanese feeling, thought, and policy knows 
she contemplates no such thing. Were it otherwise—were her 
instincts and ambitions really running in the direction of ex- 
pansion by conquest—how could she embark upon such a 
course? 

Let us indulge in the fantastic conjecture that she desires 
to attack the peaceful country of the United States. 


If Japan Should ‘‘Let us forget the frightful devastation of 
Attack America. the earthquake of 1923. Let us forget 

Japan’s financial, industrial, and_ social 
difficulties and the burdens that closely contiguous foreign 
problems place upon her statesmanship. Let us put all these 
things out of mind and assume that the Asiatic Island Empire 
wants to go to war with the American Republic, the richest and 
most powerful country in the world. Japan could not strike 
from the Philippines; at the very least she would need Hawaii, 
and who does not realize that even so her enterprise would be 
desperate? The thought that Japan may some day want to 
attack the United States is to every sane mind too preposter- 
ous for even hypothetical discussion. 

*‘As for Australia, Japan knows that any war or attack upon 
that country would raise against her—on the instant and with 
all their wealth, armament and indomitable fighting spirit— 
the combined nations of the Anglo-Saxon world. 


If Japan “Very well, then. If Japan does not want the 
Should Seize Philippines as a stepping stone to conquest, 
the Philippines. would she want these islands as a defensive 

base? I can conceive of no principle of strat- 
egy that would cause her to covet them for such a purpose. 
It is obvious, indeed, that possession of the Philippines would 
be a source of weakness, not of strength, to the Japanese, if 
they were attacked. They have Formosa and Formosa is in 
the right line for their defense and nearer home. If Japan 
were attacked, she would not scatter her forces; she would 
concentrate them. If she had naval craft in Philippine waters, 
she quickly would withdraw them to the support of her main 
fleet. 

“Tf the United States removed its authority and its fighting 
forces from the Philippines, neither Japan nor any other power 
would molest us. If Japan moved against us, whether Amer- 
ica did or did not call upon her to halt, Britian would call 


[ Page One Hundred Forty-eight } 


Qi ei Le oe os Le ae 
oUsp p ys 
, Vato 

ae 


. bs Saad 
4 2 y “9 
os i = ' - ; a ars, 





4 


SENADO DE FILIPINAS 
OFICINA DEL PRESIDENTE 
MANILA 


July 3, 1925. 


My dezr Mr. Bell: 


I have gone over the article which 
you prepared for publication in the Chicago 
Daily News, covering our interview on the 
Philippine question and other problems of 
the Pacific. I find my views fairly por- 
trayed therein and I am pleased to authorize 
you to make such use of the article as you 
may deem best. 


With every good wish for you and your 
great newspaper, I am 


Yours cordially, 


Mr. Edward Price Bell, 
Manila Hotel, Manila. 


Pama Ue gee bo eens Fl ks Prey oli bale Nees 


upon her to halt and compel her to halt. Australia’s cry easily 
would reach to Downing Street and it would be augmented by 
the cry of every British possession in Asia. Britain would 
threaten Japan, not from British home waters, but from Singa- 
pore and Hongkong, and if Japan had naval or military con- 
tingents here or on their way hither she speedily would recall 
them to her vital defensive lines. Surveying the whole horizon 
of possibilities, I can discern no presage of an attempted seizure 
of this archipelago as a result of an American withdrawal. 


Japanese Dislike ‘On the economic side also there is an 
the Tropics. utter absence of incentive to Japan to incur 

the reprobation of the world by interfering 
with the freedom of the Philippines. Japan does not want the 
Philippines for her people. The Japanese are not a tropical 
people. They are a people of the temperate zones. Their 
whole organic and temperamental adaptation is to a climate 
different from that of our latitude. If they do not like weather 
too cold—as they do not—neither do they like the meteorology 
of the tropics. Japanese die here in great numbers. We once 
had some 15,000. They came to work in the hemp fields. 
Probably not more than 5,000 are left. In all the centuries of 
the past, before Spain came, during her 330 years here and 
since she went away, no considerable body of Japanese ever 
availed itself of its liberty to enter the Philippines at its own 
will. 


“Why, then, anticipate at this time an emigratory flood of 
Japanese in this direction? They will not come. Nor has 
Japan anything to gain by seeking a preferential industrial or 
commercial position in the Philippines. Efforts of that kind 
would run directly counter to her interests, and she knows it, 
for Japan has an enlightened people and leadership in these 
days. 


Orientals Who “‘What she wants in this group of islands 
Are “‘Possessed."’ is what she wants on the mainland of Asia 

—the Open Door. It promises her more than 
anything else. “Open Door’ means equality of opportunity to 
all States, big and little, and under the egis of this principle 
Japan not only keeps the good will of the world, but enjoys 
all the material advantages appertaining to her geographical 
position relative to the Philippines and the entire Far East.”’ 


{ Page One Hundred Forty-nine | 


Fe AU Mineo e ae Ihe he: PHHeinlaly hae Nara 


*“‘What would be the repercussion of Philippine emancipation 
in British, French, and Dutch possessions in Asia?” 

Mr. Quezon smiled a somewhat wry smile. 

*‘Naturally,’” said he, ‘‘every vindication of the rights of 
man stimulates all who are struggling for the rights of man. 
Peoples do not like to be ‘possessed.’ They long to be free. 
Freedom in this archipelago, I have no doubt, would be wel- 
comed by and would give encouragement to all Asiatics and 
others under alien rule. I should not be surprised if Britain, 
France, and Holland would be pleased to see the American 
flag continue to fly over these islands in perpetuity. But to 
those nations | will say a word in all friendship. It is this: 
What their subject peoples ultimately do will not be deter- 
mined by anything which happens in the Philippines. 


When Far Eastern ‘‘What do 1 mean? I mean that when the 
Peoples Strike. millions of the Indies, of Java and Suma- 

tra, and of China are ripe for freedom they 
will take their freedom regardless of what the muse of history 
shall have meted out to the Philippines. If America elects to 
hold the Philippines she can hold them for all time so far as 
we can see, because we Filipinos are numerically weak. But 
look at India! Four hundred millions of people! Forty millions 
in the Dutch islands—more than in unconquerable France! 
And China—her people are countless! When those peoples 
become nationally self-conscious, when they are unified and 
organized, no power on earth will be able to dominate them or 
retain so much as a toehold on their territory against their 
wills.”’ 

*‘How do you think Australasia would feel over the hauling 
down of the stars and strips in the Philippines?”’ 

**Very likely she would be alarmed. But I do not think her 
alarm would be justified in the smallest degree. White men in 
the south Pacific fear Japan. Their fear, I am sure, has no 
basis in fact. It is purely fanciful. But, as I have said, Japan 
would not dare, whatever might be her desire, to start upon a 
career of militaristic imperialism. She would not dare to 
trouble the Philippines and still less Australia or New Zealand. 


When Colored Races ‘‘If America is defensively of importance 
Achieve Power. to white civilization in the Southern 

Hemisphere—as she unquestionably is— 
it is not because she is in the Philippines. It is because of her 


| Page One Hundred Fifty }. 


WeOw Reb BO oe EER CIS SARS Bh Oo DTD SA 1h Nig Sean 


tremendous, her almost measureless, strength at home, with 
its unmistakable implications.”’ 

*“What do you expect to see if and when the Asiatic peoples 
shall have power commensurate with their numbers?” 

“IT expect to see the States of the world living together 
harmoniously on the basis of universal respect for their several 
political and territorial rights.” 

“You do not expect that the colored races, by way of 
retaliation, will attempt to dominate white peoples?”’ 

“I do not. International education is advancing. We are 
wise today in at least some things in which we were foolish 
yesterday. Our wisdom will increase with the years. Both 
practical knowledge and the humanities, in my judgment, are 
on the march against the ignorance and the inhumanity of 
which we have seen so much in history. It will be a century, if 
not more, before Asia can stand erect in the full majesty of 
a strength now only potential. By that time, let us hope, the 
moralities of the world, not armies and navies, will be the 
sheet anchor of its national liberties.”’ 


Fruits of *“You think colonial possessions are mischievous?”’ 
Colonial “T think they tend to breed war. It is a historical 
Possessions. fact that they have bred war. They bred the 

World War. Germany came upon the international 
scene late. Earth’s treasure grounds had been parceled out 
to her rivals. She wanted colonies. She felt that her greatness, 
actual and latent, demanded colonies. She was willing to 
fight for them. She fought and was crushed, but the world 
was terribly crippled in the process. Colonies are still with 
us and still a source of bitterness, unrest, and possible war. 
Nations must give up the idea of seizure, of domination, of 
obtaining raw materials and trade anyhow, of force—nations 
must walk in the ways of humanity and justice—if they want 
peace.” 

*‘What is your estimate of America’s contribution to Philip- 
pine development?” 

‘It has been a great contribution. America has been remark- 
able not only for what she has done but also for what she has 
not done affecting Filipino development. She had it in her 
power to practice in these islands the creed of the military 
despot, and she did not do so. She co-operated with us in our 
efforts to make the Philippines a prosperous country. She pro- 
moted education, liberal and political. She fostered applied 


[ Page One Hundred Fifty-one } 


Pe TIO eR Bas O Shoes airs) ior el te Le hee eat Sn Nes fa 


science. Economic and financial aid accompanied the Ameri- © 
cans into the Philippines. All America did and all we did, as 
we consistently have been led to suppose, were predicated upon 
the theory that one day the Philippines would be free. We 
believe the day when they ought to be free has arrived.” 


Disadvantages ‘‘You think the Filipinos are able to maintain 
of Alien order and administer justice in the islands?” 
Control. “Decidedly so. What Filipino of any class or 
type could wish to see the American flag come 
down here, if he were able to believe that our civilization would 
come down with it—that we should have a welter of slaugh- 
ter, villages on fire, people shelterless and hungry, a stricken 
country?” 
*“You do not believe in alien control, however benevolent?” 
*‘No. Alien control and native progress to the maximum 
of native capacity are incompatible. For material and for 
moral reasons | am pleading for the independence of my 
country. It is arguable, and I consider it true, that mutual 
benefit may accrue for a time to a dominating country and the 
country dominated. There has been this time of mutual bene- 
fit as between America and the Philippines. But, in such a 
conjuncture, a stage is certain to be reached at which the 
dominating country begins to stand in the way of the interests, 
material and moral, of the country dominated. 


Hampering ‘‘Let us call America the most generous, as she 
Philippine is the most powerful, nation in the world. She 
Progress. always, none the less, must remain America. 
America must come first with Americans. Amer- 
ican sovereignty must be inviolate. There must be no fiscal 
arrangements, no fixing of channels of commerce, not con- 
cordant with American interests, though such arrangements 
or direction might promote Philippine interests. We claim 
the right on behalf of the people of the Philippines to consider 
their interests first, just as America has the right to consider 
American interests first. We want to make our own tariff laws 
and our own commercial treaties and do everything else 
belonging to national sovereignty exclusively with a view to 
_what is best for the Filipinos. 
“That is the material side of the matter. Now the moral 
side, in my opinion, is still more vital from the standpoint of 
the welfare of the Filipinos. As it is deadly to an individual 


{ Page One Hundred Fifty-two } 


Wane, Ret isan Can Ay aN OP. kar Ss eo let S 


to lack liberty, reasonable liberty, the liberty stopping only 
at the boundary of the liberty of others, so it is deadly for a 
nation to lack that liberty which stops only at the boundary 
of the liberty of other nations. 


Learning Democracy ‘‘When we have our unfettered self- 
by Its Practice. rule, I dare say we shall make mistakes, 
but in that respect we shall not be origi- 

nal or monopolistic. It is by our mistakes that we shall learn. 
America has aided us to learn much of the art of government, 
but we can master that art only by self-practice. In politics, 
as in law or medicine or music or painting, concrete achieve- 
ment is not in the scholastic sphere, but only in the sphere of 
scholasticism applied. And, anyway, even in the United 
States and in England, democracy is still on its trial.’’ 

“It is better for the Philippines to be ill-governed by the 
Filipinos than well-governed by the Americans?” 

*‘By the Americans or any other non-Filipinos.”’ 

*‘Have the diverse peoples of the islands, with their varied 
dialects, a recognizable psychic homogeneity—a national soul?” 

*“‘Indisputably. This national soul already has crystallized 
in striking national decisions—for independence, for joining 
America in the World War, against huge landed estates, against 
applying United States coastwise shipping laws to the Philip- 
pines. Our people are politically keen and peculiarly demo- 
cratic. 


Filipinos’ “There is not a barrio (city, town, village, or 
National rural district) without its political vigilance, 
Aspirations. interest and discussion. Ten per cent., over 

1,000,000, of our people have the franchise and 
between 80 and 90 per cent of the registered electors go to the 
polls on election day. You speak of dialects. We have many. 
But our major dialects are only three—Tagalog, Visaya and 
Ilokano—and whoever commands these can make himself 
understood in every part of the Philippines. All of our people 
speak one of these languages, which have an extensive printed 
literature. 

*‘To regard the Filipino peoples as sentimentally and men- 
tally diversified in proportion to their diversities of ethnog- 
raphy or religion or dialect is to misunderstand them com- 
pletely. They all are Filipinos. They all have nationalistic 
emotions and aspirations. They are intelligent and proud 


[ Page One Hundred Fifty-three } 


FOUR SURRe Ba O ak ei Poe ue ete tel ge wed eek a ee 


and ambitious. Independence they know would mean equality 
of opportunity for Filipinos. Of a political or social caste 
depriving them of their liberties or otherwise wronging them 
they have no fear. Such reports they dismiss as contrary to 
their experience and knowledge. Have they not seen their 
humblest neighbors rise to positions of dignity and influence 
in the country? Do they not know that nearly all their 
leaders have been and are of the people? 


Acceptance of ‘““Take myself, for example. Holding the 
Democratic premier elective position in the Philippines, 
Views. I am a farmer’s son, born on the soil, born poor 
and without influential friends, reared in one 
of the remotest villages in these islands, compelled to climb 
over trackless mountains to come to college in Manila.” 

**So it will be mettle that will count in a free Philippines?”’ 

“It will be mettle, just as it is mettle in the United States 
and in every other country where men are free.” 

“You say you are peculiarly democratic.” 

““‘We are so because we are unincumbered by monarchic 
or oligarchic traditions or institutional inheritances. We have 
nothing of that sort to destroy. Our ground upon which to 
erect a pure republic is clear.” 

“It is alleged that freedom of speech in the Philippines is 
suppressed—that the people fear their leaders.” 

“‘That word ‘fear’ should be changed to ‘respect.’ If respect 
be fear, then the Filipinos fear their leaders, as they have shown 
on many occasions. 


Political *‘My advice to any honest inquirer who wishes 
Alertness of to know whether free speech is or is not sup- 
Filipinos. pressed in these islands is to go out among the 


people and sound them on any of the burning 
questions of the hour. He will get their opinion without any 
trouble. And, if he be a Filipino politician, and venture to 
speak or vote against independence, he will discover on 
election day that while the Filipino people have no reason 
to fear and do not fear their leaders, their leaders have some 
reason to fear them. Public opinion in the Philippines is not 
only unsuppressed, but vocal and militant. We have two 
parties and they must be careful to learn what the people 
want. Our electors do not vote by ethnographic group, nor by 


[| Page One Hundred Fifty-four } 


Wer Rea sD OM Ni Cred Pl a ns ae Be Band 


language or dialect, nor according to their religion; they vote 
as their hearts and minds tell them is right and for the good of 
the country.” 

“One is told that an independent Filipino government 
would solve the Moro problem by stamping out the Moros.”’ 

*“We practically governed the Moros during the seven years 
of the last Administration and had no trouble with them, 
whereas whenever they have been governed by Americans there 
has been continual trouble with them. 


Christian ““We naturally understand every element of our 
Filipinos population better than can foreigners. We never 
and Moros. have been guilty of persecuting the non-Christian 
peoples of the Philippines. We have been fair 
and generous to them in respect of education, roads, sanita- 
tion, and everything else. From this practice there would be 
no departure under independence. We believe in educating all 
our people and promoting their prosperity and happiness in 
order that we may have a great and contented nation. As 
for the Filipino leaders, it should be plain to all thinking per- 
sons, in my opinion, that they can hope for a future only if 
their country has a future. They cannot build up fame, joy 
or even enduring material success upon the ruins of their father- 
land.” 
“‘What do you think of the Mayo book on the Philippines?”’ 
“Unilateral, extreme, grossly unfair, passionately dedicated 
to a particular obsession, destitute of validity as impartial 
criticism.” 


Material Side *“Certain advocates of American annexation 

of the of the Philippines, among the points they 

Question. make, state that “we need them in our 
business’.”’ 


**Ah,”’ remarked Mr. Quezon dryly, “that is not an ethical 
argument. That is the argument of the sugar. That is the 
argument of the sisal, the copra, the coconut oil, the tobacco, 
the rattan, the lumber, the pulp, the dye, the rubber. It is 
not the argument we expect to prove conclusive with the 
American people. But even this argument has no value 
because under an independent Philippines you may have our 
sugar, tobacco, copra, hemp and the rest.” 

“‘Opponents of independence describe your argument—the 
argument for independence—as ‘doctrinaire’.”’ 


[ Page One Hundred Fifty-five } 


A i, WU ON Bah Pee ie ee Deo PRAM eee 


“Our argument is no more an argument of apriority than is 
that against independence. It is true we base our case, to some 
extent, upon principles, upon philosophy; but we base it to a 
larger extent upon the general history of humanity and upon 
our own particular experience and knowledge. Our argument 
is a posteriori.” 


Validity of ‘It is argued that America’s title to the Philip- 
America’s __ pines is of triple validity, resting upon conquest, 
Title. purchase, and formal cession.” 


“Our reply is, first, that conquest is no moral 
justification for the seizure of a country and the deprivation of 
its inhabitants of liberty; and, secondly, that purchase is not 
valid when the seller has no right to sell, and cession not 
valid when the power enacting it is ceding what belongs to 
others.” 


“It is declared that no Malay people, of all the millions of 
Malays, ever created a nation.” 


‘*That is not true. About the thirteenth century there existed 
a Malay Empire. But, not troubling to question the sweeping 
dictum concerning the political ineptitude of the Malay race, 
I should not regard this point as worthy of serious notice. If 
no Malay people in all the centuries yet has built up a free 
civilization of its own, I think it high time one were given a 
chance to try.” 


If Philippine | ‘“What would happen in the islands if the 
Freedom Were Congress of the United States declared the 
Denied. Philippines permanent American territory?” 

“Our people would be profoundly disap- 
pointed and depressed. They also would be unutterably sur- 
prised. I do not think there would be an uprising, but the 
Philippine question would not be settled. It would live on as 
an embarrassment to Americans and Filipinos alike. You have 
promised us freedom. Our people are being educated for free- 
dom. We Filipino leaders have assured the Filipino people 
that, if they bore themselves patiently and with dignity, if 
they strove to lift themselves up, the United States undoubtedly 
would set them free. They believed us. Their faith is un- 
shaken today. To destroy their hopes would be immoral, illog- 
ical, inhuman, and a blunder that history one day inevitably 
would put right. , 


[| Page One Hundred Fifty-six | 









Lt hee 
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ary 


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Wee Reels yD GLI aVAGEING eras dele Lo BR bE S 


Insuring Peace ‘‘“Your great newspaper,’ concluded Mr. 
in the Pacific. Quezon, placing emphasis on each word, “‘is 

endeavoring to clarify the problems of the 
Pacific. It is working for the peace of the Pacific and of the 
world. I should like to say through The Chicago Daily News 
that, in my judgment, the peace of the Pacific is in the hands 
of the United States of America. Japan, I repeat, will not fight 
America or any other nation except in self-defense. I believe 
American-Japanese relations would be improved by an Ameri- 
can withdrawal from the Philippines—not that Japan would 
lift a finger to get America out, and not that Japan fears 
American aggression based on these islands, but simply because 
her going would be interpreted in Japan as a magnanimous act 
and a definite assurance that the United States has no inten- 
tion, now or forever, to use her unequaled power for purposes 
of material or moral domineering in the far east.”’ 


Sergio Osmena 


ERGIO OSMENA, long of great, if not decisive, weight in 
S the public life of the Philippines—he held the speakership 

of the popular chamber continuously for fifteen years— 
was 47 on September 9, 1925. He is clean-cut in face and 
figure, morally earnest, intellectually acute and powerful, 
unassuming and charming in manner, and remarkably young 
looking. In his veins is a generous dash of Chinese blood. 
His appearance is strikingly Chinese and his temperament and 
mind suggest Chinese rather than Filipino genius. But he is 
an ardent, if restrained, Filipino patriot. 

Only one other man in Filipino politics—if, indeed, there be 
one—can be mentioned in the same breath with Osmena, and 
that is Senate President Manuel L. Quezon. Quezon has a 
large admixture of Spanish blood, looks Spanish and shows 
Spanish temperamental qualities, but he, too, is an ardent 
Filipino patriot. There hardly could be a sharper contrast than 
that between these two men. Quezon is blunt, vigorous, af- 
firmative, rather scornful. Osmena is refined, considerate, 





[ Page One Hundred Fifty-seven ] 


PEE AAO okt) oe Oar iMus lao Priel) Loe ricco tae 


moderate in words, sagacious, fair in judgment, given to rela- 
tively little utterance and much thought. 


Leaders of the Both men, however—Quezon is slightly the 
Nationalist younger—are strong featured, have graceful, 
Party. well-knit physiques, and esteem smartness of 

dress. There is latent political rivalry between 
them. At one time this rivalry issued in a definite rift and 
Quezon formed a new party to reduce the power of Osmena. 
Eventually Osmena and Quezon consolidated their parties and 
now work together at the head of the nacionalistas, the majority 
party, with the democrata party, a strong organization, in 
opposition. How long this teamwork will survive the poten- 
tially conflicting personalities, views, and methods of the 
Chinese-Filipino and the Spanish-Filipino is uncertain, but 
their mutual passion for independence may keep them in 
double harness a good while. 

Educated in law, philosophy, and letters, and possessing a 
mind of flexibility and depth, Osmena has been distinguished 
in the upbuilding of Philippine institutions and in the tech- 
nical discussion of Philippine constitutional questions from the 
first days of the civil government following the defeat of the 
forces of Aguinaldo. Born in the city of Cebu, province of 
Cebu, among the southern islands, he was a prime figure in 
local politics, and in 1906, when the Provincial Governors met 
in Manila to pave the way for the Philippine Assembly, they 
chose this young statesman as their presiding officer. His 
political star has been steadily in the ascendent since. 


Filipino Passion ‘‘You consider there is great moral sub- 
for Independence. stance to the claim of the Filipinos to 
independence?’”’ 


Senator Osmena and I were sitting alone at a tea table in his 
charming drawing room on a high point in Manila. 

“Great moral substance,”’ said he, his expression something 
between a smile and a reminiscent sadness, “‘inheres in any 
struggle that has cost a people dearly, that exemplifies an aim 
more precious to them than life, and that inspires them with 
ever-growing deliberation and tenacity of purpose. Hearing 
some comments upon the ambition of the Filipinos for a country 
absolutely their own, one would be inclined to regard this 
ambition as a new-born thing, as a frivolous thing, as an in- 
sincere thing, as a shallow and ephemeral sentiment. 


{ Page One Hundred Fifty-eight } 


Wan? Rin Ls uD ome tie AMONG Con ABs oe Lon Loser edad Beene 


“It is anything but that. Filipinos have been in moral 
revolt against foreign domination for an indefinite time. Out 
of this smoldering fire burst the flames of war first against 
Spain and then against the United States. Those wars were 
fought with all that the Filipinos could put into them. General- 
ship among our leaders attained a high level and there never 
was any question of the valor of our rank and file. It was an 
uneven struggle. We carried on as long as we could. Our 
morale did not fail—not even when our flag came down— 
but our physical resources did. 


Filipino Depression “Our national aspiration for freedom 
in Defeat. survived our disasters in the field. Upon 

those disasters, indeed, it fed and from 
them it gained strength. Our heroes, both the known and the 
unknown, and all the memories of what we had gone through, 
worked silently but powerfully in the souls of our people. 
Filipinos said, ‘Heroic things have been done. Filipino women 
no less than Filipino men have shown themselves great. We 
were defeated, not because we deserved to be, not because we 
were stupid or cowardly or in any way unworthy, but because 
we were materially overwhelmed. A great price has been paid. 
It cannot be, it shall not be, that that price shall have been 
paid in vain.” That is what our people said. Those were the 
mute musings of their hearts. 

*‘Mute musings they were for only a time. They were such 
only while we were in the black shadow of our defeat. Ameri- 
can sovereignty spread quickly throughout the islands. Fili- 
pinos prominent in the war stood aloof from the partially 
autonomous provincial and municipal governments set up by 
the Americans. An impression was produced that every vestige 
of the Philippine Republic was gone—institutions, flag, the very 
soul of the Republic, our aspiration for independence. But 
that impression was delusive. It was utterly false. There 
were those mute musings | have mentioned, and they were 
not long in finding articulate and unmistakable expression. 


Working Toward ‘‘We had fought for independence in the 
Self-government. field and had lost. What happened then? 

There was a limited and fleeting surface 
sentiment for annexation to the United States—for federalism. 
This sentiment or suggestion had nothing to do with the deep 
impulses of the people. It belonged to the flotsam and jetsam 


{| Page One Hundred Fifty-nine ] 


Peer) Users OSG A te fy Bs Po HD Lal eeePaiaNGies 


of confused political thought. Filipinos, as to leadership and 
as to the masses, almost immediately realized that the aspir- 
ation to be free was irrepressible, and that the struggles for 
independence begun in war must be continued in peace.” 


‘‘And how did the surviving political energy and purpose 
of the people reveal themselves?” 


“They revealed themselves in widespread interest in public 
affairs and in vigorous co-operation with the Americans in the 
development of a rudimentary Filipino State. Our people took 
hold of the problems of provincial and local government with 
enthusiasm and intelligence, and the men of outstanding gifts 
for leadership set to work to construct a national government. 
We were given the Philippine Assembly, with representation 
on the Legislative Commission, and later—Aug. 29, 1916, a 
luminous day in Filipino history—the autonomous machinery 
of the Jones law, our Magna Charta. Solemnly and unequivo- 
cally, in that law, the American people, through their con- 
stitutional representatives, pledged themselves to grant our 
independence. 


Tests of the “Through almost a full decade the 
Philippine Assembly. Philippine Assembly, with extraordi- 

nary diligence and wisdom, progres- 
sively demonstrated the political capacity of the Filipinos. In 
this work the leaders were guided and sustained by public 
opinion throughout the archipelago. There was no political 
lethargy. All the people were as keen as were their chosen 
representatives to show the world that doubts and misgivings 
touching our experiment, the first to be tried among a Malayan 
people subject to the sovereignty of another, were unwarranted. 
Our electoral battles were contested sharply in the midst of 
universal attention and the vast majority of our voters went 
to the polls on election day. 


“Our parliamentarians, from the opening hours of their 
opportunity, displayed a consciousness of our national peculi- 
arities, traditions, and culture and also disclosed parliamen- 
tary originality. We were not noncreative. We were not blind 
copyists. We made many departures from American parlia- 
mentary practice and should have made more except for the 
dual nature of our form of government and the desirability of 
adopting methods and procedure with which the Americans 
were familiar. In our Assembly, for example, we avoided two 


{ Page One Hundred Sixty } 


SENADO DE FILIPINAS 
MANILA 


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Warn Ron iD OD LOAF NS fy Bernd GUUS Dy UE eas AALS SCN) 5 2 A Sac 


evils—excessive power in a few hands and parliamentary 
prostration. We preserved the democratic principle in our 
organization of the House and yet secured the prompt dispatch 
of public business. Our majority was made effective, but not 
tyrannical. Though the minority at no time exceeded 20 per 
cent. of the membership, it was given chairmanships of com- 
mittees, contrary to the practicein the American Lower House. 
We believed thoroughly in a minority cohesive and efficient as 
a vital part of a sound democratic legislature. 


Enacting “Concern for the good of the people has been 
Beneficial conspicuous in the whole of our parliamentary 
Legislation. life. We knew we were on trial. Every member 


loved his country, longed for its independence, 
and consequently was actuated by a high sense of responsi- 
bility. Dereliction wore the color of treason. Expected fratri- 
cidal antagonisms did not develop. Debates were earnest and 
sometimes fiery. We have had our tumultuous sessions, as do 
all the legislatures of the world, even the oldest and most 
dignified. But, the debates over, the conflicting standpoints 
put with all the brilliance and force their partisans could com- 
mand, we all were friends and sincerely indulged in the usual 
expressions of courtesy and generosity. Our legislative halls 
are not bear gardens, firmly though some foreign observers 
believed they would be.”’ 


*“What is your record relative to popular education>?”’ 


“Our first measure—the first measure of the Assembly— 
was an act appropriating a million pesos ($500,000) to build 
and equip schools in the barrios. Hard words are used about 
Filipino leaders or politicos. They are represented as disposed 
to intrench themselves in power and exploit an ignorant and 
helpless people. If they were so disposed, why should they 
foster education? Why should they be doing all in their power 
to produce an educated citizenry? American schools we want 
to preserve. Every means of elementary and of advanced edu- 
cation we want to promote. 


Popular Passion ‘There is no spirit in the world more demo- 
for Independence. cratic than is that of the Filipino nation, 

and its abused leaders hold positions of 
leadership only because of their representative character. If 
these men entertained wicked designs of exploitation, they 


[ Page One Hundred Sixty-one } 


SPP oie BN sy 28 Oe @ isk Sein ik 8 Bet Wd Pe CISC G IS ra en ess 


would not be found appropriating all the national exchequer 
will bear for primary instruction, for higher special courses for 
teachers, and for the establishment of an institution such as 
the University of the Philippines. Education, as everyone 
knows, is the relentless and resistless foe of wrong and of 
tyranny.” 

“Is there any considerable body of Filipino opinion against 
immediate and complete independence?”’ 


‘“‘No, sir. There may be a few—a very few—men who do 
not want independence. They are absolutely anti-typical. 
They are men who think of their money first and of their coun- 
try afterward. They have no public influence. There is not 
and never has been a Filipino national party opposed to in- 
dependence. No man against independence ever has been or 
can be elected to a post of any kind in the Philippine islands. 
Our people’s one passion that never will cool and their one 
vision that never will grow dim are the passion for and the 
vision of freedom. After all, love of liberty is a universal and 
immemorial human emotion.” 


Unity of the “Why should some of your rich men be 
Filipino Peoples. afraid of independence>”’ 

“There is no just reason for them to be 
afraid of independence. Most of them are not. But there are 
a few whose peculiar mentality and whose special interests 
and connections turn them away from the independence move- 
ment. Both life and property would be perfectly safe under 
Filipino sovereignty. We have proved our capacity to govern.” 


““What is your attitude to American capital?” 


“Our attitude to all foreign capital is friendly, so long as its 
investment does not move in directions inimical to the prin- 
ciple of the Philippines for the Filipinos. Every nation has an 
inalienable right to safeguard its national patrimony.” 


Christian and “What is the actual position be- 
Non-Christian Filipinos. tween the Filipinos and the non- 
Christian elements in the island>”’ 

“In the first place, we all—Christian and non-Christian— 
are Filipinos. Religious and ethnologic differences we have as 
have other nations, but we all are Filipinos. Our national 
psychic identity has been increasing in definiteness and in 
vitality with great rapidity for a quarter of a century. This 


| Page One Hundred Sixty-two } 


Wa Oe Ri Ca D Ci lA IN GG brew Leo Lo Eve Rn ita Ee 


development grew naturally out of improved communications 
of every kind, insular and interinsular, and out of the diffusion 
of education and cultural influences of all descriptions. Linked 
together as a nation geographically and acquiring therefrom a 
distinct national destiny, our peoples long were kept spiritually 
more or less apart by impassable distances and by a lack of a 
universal tongue. 


*‘But good roads, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, 
safe and quick inter-island ships and a marvelous awakening of 
popular intelligence have brought our spiritual and mental 
unity into precise conformity with our geographical unity. 
This outcome, of course, was certain from the first. It was 
only a question of time. We now get national decisions on 
great public matters as readily and as accurately as they are 
obtained in the most advanced societies. 


*“Now, with reference to the Moros and the pagans. Sup- 
posed irreconcilable hostility between them and the Christian 
Filipinos is a myth. It is a myth built up and assiduously 
propagated by two foreign dominations. These dominations 
strengthened themselves by weakening Filipinos through 
division. Their theory was to rule by dividing. During the 
seven years of our greatest degree of autonomy—1914 to 1921 
—when Filipinos were given relatively a free hand in dealing 
with the non-Christians, the wall of prejudice deliberately con- 
structed between them and their Christian Filipino brothers 
was torn down. We got on with the non-Christians harmoni- 
ously. They shared with us the consciousness of nationhood. 
Our language difficulty—the language difficulty of the Philip- 
pines as a whole—has been exaggerated to the point of gro- 
tesqueness. Everyone opposed to independence descants upon 
our numerous dialects and their fancied segregating and nation- 
ally disintegrating operation. In truth, three dialects are a 
key to the entire Filipino mind, not to mention the constant 
spread of English.” 


Genuine “There has been continuity of purpose and 
Legislative practice in your legislative development?” 
Development. ‘“‘Absolutely. We did not build thoughtlessly. 
Principles were our guide. We had knowledge 
of history and of the tried maxims of free government. Be- 
sides, we had our own experience of civilized life—our long 
contact with Western ideas—and our own separate and unique 


{| Page One Hundred Sixty-three | 


BU Ca ike OcGk SPS hae ead my Bi) Gag BAG (A cot es (de Fe) 


racial inspiration. There is no other way to constitute a 
national organism—no other way than by consultation of 
racial fundamentals in the light of the common culture of the 
world. We did that. If we had done otherwise—if we had 
depended altogether upon foreign experience and thought— 
our title to independence would not be what it is. No great 
oak can rise from or rest upon anything but its own far- 
spreading roots. Any student of our parliamentarism will have 
no trouble in picking out its proofs of originality and catholic 
eclecticism. I may remark, in passing, that we adopted the 
national budgetary system some years before the United States 
adopted it and that our secretaries of departments have the 
right to appear on the floor of the houses of the legislature.”’ 


Interpreting “What is the crux of the trouble between 
the Jones Law. the Philippine Legislature and tlhe Governor- 
General?” 


‘Antagonistic interpretations of our organic law—the Jones 
law. It is a constitutional controversy. We hold that the in- 
tent of the law was to confer complete internal autonomy upon 
the Filipino nation. I say ‘internal autonomy.’ I recognize 
without question the right and the duty of the United States, 
having regard to its responsibilities in the existing situation, 
to exercise sovereignty over our external relations. [| do not 
contend that we legally can take away from the United States 
the attributes and functions of sovereignty. But I do contend 
that the Jones law gives us, and was designed to give us, un- 
restricted freedom in the weaving of a fabric of internal politi- 
cal and social economy. It is, in my opinion, inconsistent with 
the purpose of the Jones law for the Governor-General to veto 
any act of the Legislature affecting exclusively our domestic 
affairs. At the heart of the Jones law, as I understand it, is 
the intention to liberate the Philippine Legislature to act 
wisely or foolishly, according to its own volition, in developing 
a democratic government in these islands. We say to the 
United States, ‘Let us hammer out our own shape upon the 
anvil of experience’.”’ 


The Constitution ‘Do you not accept the American consti- 

Does Not Apply. . tutional principle of the separation of legis- 
lative, judicial, and executive powers>”’ 

“That principle does not apply to the Philippines. Our basic 

law is not derived from the American Constitution. Our govern- 


| Page One Hundred Sixty-four) 


Ware ReaD ae her ore INe Ce hE ea LZ LS botnet rari 


ment is not of the Presidential type. Let meexplain. Parent- 
hood of the Jones law is found in the act of the American Con- 
gress of July 1, 1902, and the predecessor of that act was 
McKinley’s command to the Philippine Commission. Neither 
the act nor the command, organically, is based on the Con- 
stitution of the United States. Immediately, their source is 
the American system of territorial government—more particu- 
larly the Jeffersonian plan for the government of Louisiana— 
and, remotely, the system of colonial government existing in 
America before the thirteen colonies obtained their inde- 
pendence. In none of the organic charters of the American 
colonies, nor in any American territorial law, is there identity 
with the type of government established by the Constitution 
of the United States. Obviously our Government is not of the 
Presidential type. We have no President. Our supreme execu- 
tive is not elected by our people and is responsible to a foreign 
government. Categorically, moreover, the Supreme Court of 
the United States has declared that ‘the Constitution did not 
follow the flag into the Philippines.’ Like a golden thread, 
through American law and through all American utterances of 
high official authority, runs the theory that the American 
people and their statesmen always have meant that the Philip- 
pines should develop according to their own genius and should 
be free.”’ 


Peace for a “You have no doubt a free Philippines 
Free Philippines. would be peaceful itself and peace-con- 
serving?” 


“‘None. We are a peaceful people. We are a law-respecting 
people. We are a property-cherishing people. We work hard. 
We ask nothing of America and the world except to let us 
follow unfettered our path of destiny. We shall cause no 
trouble. We are not uninstructed in either the arts or the 
proprieties of diplomacy. Nobody will bother us when America 
removes her sovereignty. National ambitions are not running 
in the direction of strife now. Governments and peoples want 
peace. Statesmen are going into the international council 
chamber instead of dispatching field marshals at the head of 
troops. I feel the world is on the threshold of that peace 
for which it has paid so much and for which it has waited 
so long.” 


[Page One Hundred Sixty-five | 


BU Urrar Or: dNde has Pere ails ea iN ee 


Governor-General Leonard Wood 


AJ.-GEN. LEONARD WOOD, Governor-General of 
M the Philippine Islands, is probably without a rival, 
Caucasian or non-Caucasian, in his knowledge of the 
archipelago and the people for which he has supreme immediate 
responsibility. Certainly Gen. Wood is America’s greatest 
authority on the Philippine question—one of the most peculiar, 
important, and difficult questions that ever preoccupied Am- 
erican statesmanship. 


Gen. Wood has come to know the Philippines as a result of 
prolonged first-hand study. This study has been unremittent 
for more than twenty years. Arriving in the islands in 1903, 
after his distinguished services in Cuba as Military Governor 
of Santiago and as Governor-General, he was appointed Governor 
of the Moro province, comprising the southern islands and 
Mindanao, populated principally by Moros and pagans—in all 
some eighteen tribes. Gen. Wood was not only head of the 
Civil Government, with a Legislative Council, responsible for 
five districts, but Commanding General of the troops in the 
Department of Mindanao and Sulu. 


Intensive Study For three years, in the capacities named, 
of the Philippines. Gen. Wood was constantly among the 

people, frequently visiting every tribe and 
settlement. Then he became Military Commander of the Philip- 
pine Division, with headquarters in Manila, whence he con- 
tinued his diligent investigations. Following this work, he 
studied the Philippines as chairman of the special mission of 
investigation, together with W. Cameran Forbes, and a staff 
of experts, in 192]. 


This investigation lasted four months and covered forty- 
eight of the forty-nine provinces into which the islands are 
divided. It was a systematic and thorough investigation of 
all phases of Philippine conditions, geographic, climatic, 
natural, human, and governmental. 


Out of these painstaking inquiries, reaching into 449 cities 
and towns and involving eleven weeks of travel by sea, rail, 
motor car, and horse, sprang the great classic on the Philip- 
pines—the Wood-Forbes Report tothe Harding Administration. 
In this Report are embodied the fundamentals of the Philippine 
problem. It is full of illumination to the historical and phile 


{ Page One Hundred Sixty-six } 





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sophical mind. Its discoveries and conclusions were the price- 
less possession of Gen. Wood when he came to the Philippines 
as the chief officer of the sovereign power, and his knowledge 
of the islands and the islanders has been ripened and extended 
by four years of further traveling and by arduous administra- 
tive experience. 


American Control Gen. Wood, gray, ruddy, sturdy, dignified, 
Must Continue. received me in the Governor-General’s pri- 
vate office, Malacanang Palace, Manila 
He sat in a wide, tall, dark hardwood chair, with bottom and 
back of cane, and talked rapidly in a low voice. His voice was 
so low that now and again I had difficulty in catching every 
word. For the most part the veteran soldier and administrator 
wore a look of seriousness, if not severity, but two or three 
times during the conversation his features relaxed, he smiled, 
and there was an extremely pleasant look in his blue eyes. 
He has character. He has magnetism. He has brains. He is 
not only a military man; he is a thinker and a statesman. 

*‘What do all your inquiries, experience, and thought tell 
you we ought to do about the Philippines>’’ I asked the Gov- 
ernor-General. 

*‘That we ought to see our great enterprise through,’’ he 
replied. 

*‘That we ought to stay here indefinitely?” 

*“‘Indefinitely.”’ 

“Why?” 

‘Because the work we set out to do is only begun. How long 
it will take no one can say. If we withdrew now, all we have 
done would be undone, our investment of blood and treasure 
would be wasted, twenty-five years of idealistic labor would be 
thrown away, the Filipino people would be heartlessly be- 
trayed, and we should do a criminal disservice to the stability 
and the highest interest of the world.” 


Education Must ‘You believe the Filipinos to be potentially 
Come First. capable of self-government?”’ 

“Potentially, yes. But to translate this 
potentiality into an actuality will take a long time—somewhere 
perhaps between a quarter and a half century. It is a matter 
of rearing and educating occidentally enough Filipinos to 
govern the country. There are far from enough now. Young 
educated people are still a small proportion of the population. 


[ Page One Hundred Sixty-seven | 


nk Pa be OB kaa 3 iar 0 se We oc der Bd Saad A) ead eb ds Bd SA'S) 


We need more schools and teachers and a great extension of 
the English language, which alone can serve as a medium of 
psychological consolidation among peoples dispersed over 
thousands of islands and divided by eighty-seven different 
dialects.” 


“What are some of the evidences of latent Filipino ca- 
pacity?” 

‘“‘These people are property-loving and law-abiding. They 
are sympathetic, intelligent, hospitable, and neighborly. Their 
keenness for education is unsurpassed. Parents are willing to 
make almost any sacrifice to keep their children in school. 
Filipino teachers are zealous and hard-working. Intellectual 
activity is apparent in all directions. Political affairs receive 
more and more popular attention and there is a growing in- 
terest in public health and public works. Assimilability to 
western ideals is marked. Aptitude for politics and a desire 
to participate in government are conspicuous Filipino qualities. 


Folly That “But all these things in the Philippines are 
Brought merely tokens of what can be—not what is— 
Retrogression. in the way of capacity for self-government. 


Intellectualism is not a sufficient qualification 
for the tasks of statecraft and administration. Intellectualism, 
indeed, may be an evil rather than a good. It is an evil if, as 
in the Philippines, it tends to run ahead of the more substantial 
virtues of character. Before you have a government you must 
have a country to govern; you must have agriculture, industry, 
commerce, and finance. You must have credit. Too many 
educated Filipino minds are dazzled by political and profes- 
sional ambition, too few attracted by the harder and more im- 
portant tasks of maintaining a civilized society. 


“That the Filipinos have undeveloped gifts for government 
has been proved by American experience in the islands. Our 
earlier efforts here were well-conceived and skillfully executed. 
They bore excellent fruit. We were making splendid progress. 
Our Filipino pupils in the theory and practice of democracy, 
responding eagerly to the experience, ideals, methods, and 
authority of the Americans, acquired discipline, efficiency, 
thoroughness, a high sense of responsibility. Then injudicious 
idealism entered. A great folly was committed. Excessive and 
too rapid Filipinization from 1914 to 1921 eliminated American 
experience and installed Filipino inexperience to such an ex- 


[ Page One Hundred Sixty-eight ] 


WaerOuoR dali Gre Hi Av eNes Coot Les Recents 


tent that there was an all-around retrogression, legislative, 
executive, and judicial and in the Philippine Constabulary. 


Self-Rule Would ‘‘We must return to our old slow-but-sure 
Bring Disaster. method; short cuts are alluring but perilous. 
I do not mean that the system inaugurated 
by the Jones law—the system of house and senate and sovereign 
executive—must be abandoned. It probably should be some- 
what modified and it certainly should be made to work. It 
did not work during the period of our back-sliding in the 
Philippines. There was not a strict performance of the duties 
of the Governor-General under the law. There was too much 
surrendering of executive authority, combined with too much 
legislative usurpation, interference of political leaders in the 
general supervision and control of departments and bureaus 
and the infection of the civil service with politics. Disastrous 
socialistic experiments were made and the Philippine National 
bank lost $35,000,000 gold—one of the darkest pages in Philip- 
pine history. It has been my work, with the unmistakable 
good will of the people—of every one but a few leaders—to 
restore the authority of the Governor-General under the law.”’ 
““What do you think would be the immedia¢e results of our 
leaving?” 

“Strife, disorder, bloodshed. They might not come instantly 
but they would come soon. Moros, whom we have disarmed 
and who want us to stay and protect them, and Christian Fili- 
pinos would fight. Industry, trade, and credit would be 
ruined, with the inevitable concomitants of idleness, hunger, 
and anarchy. We should look back upon the plight of these 
12,000,000 people, who never have known what it means to 
defend or sustain themselves, who never have known any free- 
dom except what our flag has given them—we should look 
back upon their plight with national sorrow, pity, and shame. 
Japanese would come in, not necessarily as an army, but with 
their vigorous business methods, and Chinese would swarm 
hither for all sorts of pursuits. As I have said to Filipino 
friends, “Chinese would hold your valleys; you fellows would 
be sitting on the hilltops.’ ”’ 


Unsettling “Would that be all>’’ 
the Far East. ‘No; that would not be all. We should un- 
settle the Pacific and the Far East. Weshould 


create a situation replete with sinister possibilities. Political 
[| Page One Hundred Sixty-nine } 


Pauly es OVE i piven eee Poa) o ale here ee ee 


impotence, social disorganization, and intertribal conflicts in 
the Philippines would not be allowed to continue for a great 
while. Civilized strength, from one quarter or another, would 
move toward this vortex of trouble and suffering and such a 
movement might precipitate the worst consequences. In any 
event, the hope of Philippine independence would be dashed 
for ages if not for all time. Filipino leaders should be able to 
see these dangers, but they see only a vision of personal power. 
They are insensate to encompassing realities. They are bent 
upon gambling with the fate of their own people and with the 
peace of the Pacific. 


“Conceivably, this peace might not be broken, but the risk 
is there, and if there were no other consideration in the matter, 
that risk should impose upon America a sacred obligation to 
hold the Philippines until it is reasonably sure that all such 
peril is past.” 


Benefits for *‘Our presence here, in existing conditions, 
Oriental Peoples. is needed on the side of the Occident>” 

“‘It is needed on the side of both Occident 
and Orient. Equilibrium between them promises stability; dis- 
equilibrium threatens instability. Our position in the Philip- 
pines does not give the Occident overweening strength in the 
Pacific. It in no sense jeopardizes either the peace or the peace- 
ful trading rights of any power. We are here with the loftiest 
ideals, not only toward the Filipinos, but toward all our Asiatic 
neighbors. We want to live on terms of amity and equality 
with them all. We stand for the Open Door. Westand fora 
solution of every industrial and commercial, as well as every 
political, question on a basis of reason and justice and not of 
force. We have earned, we have paid for, our right to carry 
our experiment in the Philippines to full fruition, and mean- 
while the possession of this archipelago re-enforces our diplo- 
macy touching all international matters in the Orient, among 
them the principles of the Washington treaties and the Open 
Door. 


Advancing Christian “‘We cannot think of this Philippine 
Civilization. question,’ said Gen. Wood, with intensi- 

fied earnestness, “without thinking of 
civilization as a whole. And civilization, to us, is Christian 
civilization. We are a stone, if not the keystone, of the arch 
of Christian civilization in the Pacific. Filipinos, as to all but 


[ Page One Hundred Seventy ] 


ETS aa Ba hp B erie Ase Nn Gg Chaba laa hry pectin see 


a tenth of the population, are Christians. Christianity’s human- 
izing influence shows in their faces and is recorded in their 
steady moral advance. Paganism and non-Christianity can be 
broken down only by the impact of spiritual and cultural in- 
fluences and these will be projected from the base of a highly- 
developed Christian Philippines as they cannot be projected 
from the distant bases of America and Europe. 

*‘America in the Philippines, in other words, insures the 
effective deployment of Christianity for the regeneration of 
the world. These are solemn obligations and great opportuni- 
ties. We can be false to them only at the cost of treason to 
that faith which we believe to be essential to the highest human 
development. Let us go out of the Philippines only when we 
can leave the torch of that faith in strong hands. If we and 
those who believe as we believe can Christianize the world, 
in the full psychic and ethical sense of that phrase, we shall 
rid it of injustice, of human degradation, of social cleavage 
and conflict, and of international slaughter. I attach immense 
importance to developing the Philippines as Christianity’s 
great peaceful outpost in the Pacific.” 


Defects of a “You have every respect ‘or the sentiment 
Childlike People. of nationality>”’ 

“| have every respect for the sentiment of 
nationality. But the possession of sovereign national status 
can be a blessing to a people only when it means national 
security, when it means sagacity and restraint in foreign affairs, 
when it means political and economic competence, when it 
means established law and order, when it means sanitation, 
education, social justice, personal and religious liberty. Na- 
tional development of this order can rest upon nothing but the 
development of the individual citizen. Every society stands 
or falls according to the presence or absence of ability, per- 
severance, and self-command in its individual members. No 
society can be made or preserved by a group of politicians, nor 
by a group of groups of politicians, however notable their 
intellectual dexterity. 

‘Our task in the Philippines is to bring up the general level 
of education and efficiency to a point where the individual 
citizens of competence are sufficiently numerous to support a 
stable structure of government, of social relations and of in- 
dustrial and commercial prosperity. There is no such general 
level of education and efficiency now. Filipinos, despite their 


[ Page One Hundred Seventy-one ] 


a) eB PRhg Bes B fda ae ss O F bees Piel lalvearone Neca 


human charm and their many encouraging moral and mental 
endowments, are generally unoriginal, non-initiatory, non- 
constructive, and dilettante. They are too childlike, too 
feeble, for the heavy burdens of statehood.”’ 


Liberty Under the ‘‘What will you say of the claim that Fili- 
American Flag. pino progress to the highest extent is im- 
possible without liberty?” 

“I will say that the Filipinos, in their present backward 
condition, have under our flag the only liberty they can hope 
to enjoy. Their leaders are ready to give up the substance of 
liberty in a wild grasp for its shadow; they are ready to lead 
their people into disaster. Lord Northcliffe was right when he 
told the Filipinos they had more liberty than any other people 
in the world—shielded from external and internal molestation, 
lowly taxed, surrounded by the safeguards and minis- 
trations of science, blessed with churches and schools and 
communications, left entirely free to use their hands or brains 
as best they can, launched on an even keel on the main stream 
of modern progress. 

“They talk about liberty. Why, America is the mother of 
liberty as the term is understood in the world today. It is 
precisely because we love liberty that we are disinclined to 
leave these islands prematurely and permit them to relapse 
into slavery. We came into the Philippines not to take away, 
but to give, liberty. We cannot accomplish our task by scut- 
tling. Filipinos can have liberty only if they accept it from 
the Americans in the form of that comprehensive culture and 
discipline, those moral, intellectual, and civic virtues, which 
alone make liberty possible. I note a Filipino leader’s remark 
that while his people are grateful to America for what she has 
done here they cannot pay their debt of gratitude in the cur- 
rency of independence. We are not asking for gratitude. We 
are not working for gratitude. Our aims are not so low as that. 
Our aims are to found a strong, free, Christian nation in the 
West Pacific for the sake of that nation, ourselves, and our 
fellow men in general.”’ 


Friends of American ‘‘If the Philippines were near our shores, 
Rule Muzzled. would your attitude be different>”’ 

“In that case, I should say, ‘Let them 
try it.” We could take the risk then. But they are too far 
away. Once we leave these islands, we are gone for good. We 


[| Page One Hundred Seventy-two } 


eee 


os yh ‘ 
: wv. 





@ffice of the Governsr General 
sHlanila 


July 14, 1925. 


Mr. Victor Fremont Lawson, 
Editor-in-Chief of The Daily News, 
Chicag 0. 


Dear Mr. Lawson: 


Your correspondent in the 
Pacific, Mr. Edward Bell, in the accom- 
panying interview, faithfully reflects my 
feelings and convictions relative to the 
Philippine problem. It has been a pleas-— 
ure to ms to do what I could to cooperates 
with you in your great work of spreading 
light and sympathy among the nations. 


Sincerely, 
Governor — General. 


Wo One Riri iD Ceri AgiNts Coch ive ree Re) Ba 


shall not come back. There are no more Perry or Dewey 
opportunities contiguous to the eastern coastline of Asia.” 

“‘Is it true that free speech is suppressed in the Philippines 
by fear of the leaders of the independence movement?”’ 

*“To a very considerable extent that undoubtedly is true. 
Nonpolitical Filipinos of education and understanding must be 
courageous, indeed, if they voice the opinion they actually 
hold, namely, that it is better for the country as a whole that 
America should remain as she is for an indefinite time. Surely 
any thinking person can realize that this naturally would be 
so. Persons against immediate independence are denounced 
as traitors—not openly, perhaps, but none the less effectually, 
for most of the intelligence circulating in the Philippines cir- 
culates by word of mouth. Ignorance is widespread among the 
masses. They are for independence, when energetically stimu- 
lated on the subject by the leaders, for they have not the 
slightest conception of its practical significance. Can you be- 
lieve it would be healthy for a Filipino champion of deferred 
independence to fall among ignorant compatriots to whom he 
had been described as a traitor? 


Ignorance *‘Get firmly in mind the fact that there 
Swayed by Politics. are three classes in this drama of Philip- 
pine agitation respecting independence. 
There is the small political class hungry for the loaves and 
fishes, the enlightened class (larger than the first, but not large 
enough for prevalence) interested only in the welfare of the 
people, and the uninstructed bulk of the population. Patriotic 
and useful public opinion belongs in the main to the second of 
these classes. It is this public opinion which is suppressed by 
fear of the leaders—fear of them as instigators of the ignorant 
majority against any one who counsels prudence and delay in 
the matter of independence. Relief for this unfortunate situa- 
tion can be had, of course, only in widening the circle of un- 
selfish public opinion—only in educating the majority. When 
observers inquire why it is, if the Filipinos do not want im- 
mediate independence, that they elect the champions of im- 
mediate independence, the reply is that the ignorant portion 
of the electorate is misled by self-seeking politicians.” 
“And you do not think’ the Filipinos should have what is 
bad for them, even if the majority wants it?” 
“I do not. They are not entitled to have what is bad for 
them, even though they want it, for what is bad for them is 


{ Page One Hundred Seventy-three | 


POU ay On ees Orn Teh SE. Fe Ph a ie Pa Neer 


bad for a lot of other people who do not want it. It is intoler- 
able that an uneducated electorate, harangued by political 
aspirants to power and emolument, should frustrate America’s 
long, laborious, and expensive struggle to build a firmly-based 
Christian state in the Philippines and also should jar the deli- 
cate interracial and international balance in the Pacific inimi- 
cally to the cause of world peace.” 


Filipinos Happy ‘‘Would the masses be satisfied if they were 
and Satisfied. left alone by the leaders?’ 

*“‘Perfectly. There is not a more satisfied 
or happier people in the world. I go among them continually 
and everywhere am received with the greatest courtesy and 
hospitality. I have just returned from a voyage of 3,000 
miles among the scattered islands. I visited fifty centers of 
life and motored extensively in the rural regions. I carried no 
arms. Not a weapon of any kind was needed in my party. 
Cordial popular welcomes greeted me at every turn. Illiterate 
though vast numbers of these people are, they know enough 
to know they never before were so well off in every moral and 
material way as they are now.” 

*“What is the percentage of literacy in the islands>?”’’ 

*‘About 37 per cent., would be a liberal estimate.” 

“‘Manuel Roxas, speaker of the Philippine House, stated 
before a congressional committee in Washington that it was 
over 60 per cent.” | 

*“Yes, he made that misstatement and others. His statistics 
were wrong. He compared dialectic differences in the Philip- 
pines to the slight differences of this kind in the United States. 
That is ridiculous. There are here eighty-seven distinct dia- 
lects, many of them as unlike as are the modern Latin lan- 
guages and some of them differing as radically as do English 
and German. English is the only hope of a national medium 
of communication in the Philippines. 


Samples of ““‘Let me briefly illustrate further how un- 
Filipino Rule. reliable were the statements of Roxas in 

Washington. He asserted that during the 
Administration of Gov.-Gen. Harrison, when that officer, ac- 
cording to Roxas, abdicated his military duties under the 
law and left the Constabulary in the Moro region to unre- 
stricted Filipino command—a period of seven years—there 
was not a single killing in that region. As a fact, during that 


[ Page One Hundred Seventy-four } 


Wii tO ReaD COREA ea Mrs Le ob Ri fen Ba S 


period, the records show 124 conflicts between the Constabulary 
and the Moros, 499 Moros dead, 22 Constabulary soldiers dead, 


1 officer dead and many wounded on both sides. 


““Nor is this the whole story of that ‘peaceful’ reign. In the 
same region Bogobos killed 50 Japanese over land troubles. 
It was during the time in question that occurred the most 
serious breach of public order since the foundation of the Civil 
Government. That breach consisted in a fight between the 
Constabulary and the police of Manila. Asa result of thatclash 
a number of both combatants and innocent citizens were killed 
and many of the Constabulary were sentenced to death or to 
life imprisonment. 


“‘Furthermore, the assertions of Roxas in commendation of 
the health service were untrustworthy. During the time under 
review Cholera in the Philippines destroyed 17,000 and small- 
pox 73,000 lives. We are now free from all sorts of epidemics. 
In their statistics and in their afhrmations Filipino politicians 
want checking up.” 


Obstacles to ““What would be your concluding word of 
Filipino Progress. counsel to Filipino politicians and to the 
Filipino intelligentsia in general>?”’ 

“IT should counsel them at once and without reservation to 
drop the idea of immediate independence and dedicate them- 
selves whole-heartedly to co-operation with the Americans in 
creating a Filipino citizenship capable of orderly, just, pro- 
gressive, prosperous, and self-defensive democratic rule. For 
such co-operation the road lies wide, smooth, and open. Petty 
Filipino politics should be cut out as a cancerous growth. 
Deliberate annoyance of the representatives of the sovereign 
power should cease. Abortive extralegalism—abortive, but 
pernicious—should be abandoned. There should be no petti- 
fogging opposition to the clear authority of the Governor- 
General, whoever he may be, under the organic law. If the 
Philippine Legislature and the Governor-General disagree, and 
if their disagreement reach a deadlock, then the President of 


the United States should decide. 


““My advice to the educated Filipinos would be frankly to 
accept all these conditions and to change their appeal to the 
people from a call to illusory independence to a call to that 
moral and mental advance which is the sine gua non of real 
independence.”’ 


[| Page One Hundred Seventy-five | 


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CHINA'S 
RIGHTS AND WRONGS 


Interview with 


DR. TANG SHAO-YI 


ex-Premier, and Progressive Advocate of Chinese 
Nationalism Based on Enlightened Democracy. 


“All Chinese are Compounded of the same 
Spiritual Stuff. China’s Oneness of Spirit is not 
visible to the Cursory Glance, but it is'there. It 
is the Ultimate Reality in China. It is China.” 


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China's Rights and Wrongs 


HATEVER may be the color of the speaker, so far as 

\ \/ I can discover, only words of respect and affection are 

spoken of Dr. Tang Shao-yi of China. His character, 
personality, and mind—the spiritual and mental individuality 
and worth of the man—constitute perhaps the greatest single, 
silent, underlying vitality now actuating the slow course of 
Chinese political and social evolution. 

Every country in the world, I suppose, has its beloved elder 
statesman—its “‘grand old man’’—but out of long-past political 
conditions and struggles few nations, if any, have retained a 
leader who means so much to them at present as Dr. Tang 
Shao-yi means to China. Grand old man he is, yet he is only 
65, and when I met him at the threshold of his roomy and 
pleasing home in Shanghai he struck me as at the zenith of 
his life in both appearance and vigor. 


China’s Champion I found the famous statesman among 
of National Unity. his grandchildren. 
*“These,’’ said he, spreading his arms wide 
and smiling down at the youngsters on the floor, ‘‘these are mine.”’ 
Dr. Tang, who became Prime Minister of China on the 
abdication of the Manchu Emperor in 1912 and who later was 
appointed Foreign Minister—a portfolio, however, he did not 
assume—has had experience in virtually every department of 
the government of his country. He was a high court official in 
the final days of the Manchu regime. He served under Yuan 
Shih-kaiin Korea and in Shantung and was active in the sup- 
pression of the Boxer rising, traveling thereafter to the United 
States to thank the Washington Government for waiving the 
Boxer indemnity. He was a member of the first group of 
students sent by the Chinese Government to be educated in 
the United States and encountered a stimulating phase of 
Western civilization in the robbery of his train in a Southern 
state by Jesse James and a gang of subordinate outlaws. 
Independence has been the outstanding characteristic of 
Dr. Tang’s political life. Willing to study facts, to investigate 
conditions, to hear arguments and to reflect, he acted as he 


Page One Hundred Seventy-nine ] 


CAHCEIN VAS SSR Gorin Se ARNG LO eva vn Ge Nes 


saw fit in the end, even at the cost of breaking with such men 
as Yuan Shih-kai and Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Dr. Tang is a kind 
of Daniel Webster or Abraham Lincoln in his devotion to the 
cause of national unity. Only one government, in his judg- 
ment, is wide enough for China, and this is a government em- 
bracing within its jurisdiction every man, woman, and child 
in whom glows the vital spark of the Chinese race. 


Marching Toward ‘‘And there is such a spark>’’ I remarked, 
True Nationalism. as we sat talking in the quiet of the states- 
man’s drawing room. 

‘“‘Most certainly,’’ he replied. “‘All Chinese are compounded 
of the same spiritual stuff. China’s oneness of spirit is not 
visible to the cursory glance, but it is there. It is the ultimate 
reality in China. It is China. Localism, provincialism, centrifu- 
galism are strong now because we have not yet a conscious- 
ness of the unity of national interests—not even a conscious- 
ness of the universality of the Chinese soul. Our dispersed and 
divided multitudes are unacquainted with one another and 
ignorant of their interdependence and brotherhood. Our 
ignorance is but a sign of the vastness of China, our weakness 
but a portent of Chinese strength in the centuries to come.” 

“Your national weakness results from aggressive local or 
provincial strength?” 

*“‘Unquestionably. All nations—there is not an exception— 
have had their periods of internal blindness, disunion, and 
strife. America, for example, did not find herself until she had 
fought one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of man- 
kind. That war revealed the will of the United States to be 
one. Chinese internal struggles, likewise, reveal the march 
of the purpose of union. If this purpose were not on the march 
there would be no hostile local reactions, no uprisings of sec- 
tions disturbed by the imminence of a new regime pivoted upon 
central authority. If this purpose of union were not in motion 
we should have provincial tranquillity, but we should pay 
too great a price for it. It is better that China should be 
racked by war than that she should fall short of the high 


destiny which only nationality and independence can give her. 


China on the ““What we have in dramatic manifesta- 
Road to Democracy. tion now are our minor virilities of dis- 

union. One day these minor virilities of 
disunion will coalesce in a major virility of union. China co- 
hesive and vigorous provincially will become China cohesive 


[ Page One Hundred Eighty } 


Wel son: Fy alae kD CO EAT eeiN a CE ioe TE Ts tay Rae Ea Eon 


and vigorous nationally. On that day this motherland of 
civilization will have its e pluribus unum. Just as strong in- 
dividual citizens are necessary to strong provincial social uni- 
ties, so strong provincial social unities are necessary to strong 
national social unities. Our bedrock necessities, of course, are 
strong individual men and women, and Chinese men and 
women, though not of giant stature, are strong in physique, 
in intelligence, and in morale.” 

“You are looking forward to democracy in China>?”’ I asked, 
realizing what a fine picture of democratic manhood Dr. Tang 
presented as he sat in his straight-backed chair, leaning for- 
ward, his hands on his knees, his clear, steady, humane, dark 
eyes fixed upon mine—a plainly dressed, rugged, natural man, 
as innocent of physical pose as he was incapable of intellectual 
pretense. 

“‘Democracy—yes. No political principle can live except 
the principle of democracy. It is a principle, to be sure, not 
yet fully brought down from the heights of idealism, but it is 
being brought down bit by bit and the time will come when 
we shall possess and practice it in reasonable perfection. That 
time must come. [f that time were not coming we could 
anticipate only social dissolution. People are going to rule 
themselves or not be ruled. Self-rule is the only authority 
they will recognize as otherwise than tyrannical and insuffer- 
able. It is a sound instinct, infinitely creditable to man, the 
last word in the assertion of human dignity. 


Democratic Spirit ‘“Wider consultation of the people, wider 
of Young China. suffrage, more democracy, are imperative 
in China. Bosses and cliques and domi- 
neering militarists must go. Squeezes, nepotism, favoritism, 
graft, must go. Forces antagonistic to low standards of public 
life are mobilizing all over China. Moral retrogression followed 
the disappearance of the Manchu dynasty, which, after con- 
quering the country, ruled it for more than two and a half 
centuries; but this ebb will cease and we shall witness an un- 
precedented return of the moral tide. Young China is in a 
glow of patriotic and ethical emotion, responding to educa- 
tional stimulus, stirred by a sense of age-old disrespect, am- 
bitious to affirm for China’s millions their rightful place and 
influence in the comity of nations. 
‘Chinese illiteracy is much talked about by foreigners. 
‘How,’ it is asked, ‘can these illiterate Chinese maintain a 


[ Page One Hundred Eighty-one | 


COHSEN SAC Se RM IV GRE S eSa ALS Na W awe CUR eat 


republic?’ Well, an elector may be able to read and write and 
yet be a poor elector. He may lack intelligence and, as he 
often does, political interest. Look at the millions of eligibles 
in England and the United States who will not trouble to walk 
to the polls and cast their ballots on election day. Of what 
use is their literacy to the democracy of which they are theoret- 
ically a part? To what purpose, politically, have they learned 
to read and write? No; democracy is in the spirit and not in 
the letter; democracy is an affair of sentiment, of understand- 
ing, of conviction, of a sort of religious public zeal. 


Confucianism Leads “This zeal is coming to China. China, 
to Democracy. to a large extent, is unlettered, but it is 

not unintelligent. China is enlightened, 
observant, and thoughtful. It has been silent—too silent. It 
has been patient—too patient. Its silence and patience have 
been misunderstood, and both China and the world are pay- 
ing for this misunderstanding. China’s wisdom, which is 
widely diffused, has sprung from its thousands of books, the 
essence of which has imbued the public mind. If literacy and 
political competence were in the relation of producer and 
product and if literacy were alone in the first position China 
would not have political competence. But we all know that 
literate people may be foolish and illiterate people wise, and 
it follows that literate people may be poor democrats and 
illiterate people good ones. Confucian literature by itself has 
given China a democratic birthright.” 

Dr. Tang paused for a moment and a smile of apparently 
deep satisfaction shone in his eyes. 

“Confucius,” he repeated. “‘His great spirit—the light of 
his soul—has blessed not only China but Asia. Five centuries 
before Christ his influence had its beginning, and it is incal- 
culably powerful today. It affects great minds and these 
transmit its virtue to other minds in ever-widening circles. My 
old friend, Viscount Shibusawa of Japan, for instance, is a de- 
voted student of Confucius. He told me he had read our 
philosophical master every day for sixty years. Before the 
invention of the automobile Shibusawa carried a copy of Con- 
fucius in his pocket. Now he carries a copy in his pocket and 
another in a pocket of his car. If you see the wonderful old 
gentleman reading as he passes through the streets of Tokyo 
it is ninety-nine to one he is reading Confucius.”’ 


{ Page One Hundred Eighty-twal) 


Wait Oa eters Gents Ame NOR G@ Greta Lig ie irae te mea i 


China’s Relations Returning to the democratic quality of 
with Japan. China, Dr. Tang said: 

*“‘Let no one infer from our war lords that 
the Chinese people like war lords. Observe this tiger skin on 
the floor. It once clothed a free-ranging and ferocious beast 
in the forest, but finally this beast fell a victim to the hunter 
and was skinned. Our ruling generals are ranging somewhat 
freely at the moment. But they must be wary. Not one of 
them dares to go home. Not one of them would be safe at 
home. In this fact and in many others we have proof that 
the democratic heart of China is sound.”’ 

“How are China and Japan getting on together latterly>”’ 

“Our relations are improved. I regard the outlook as favor- 
able. Premier Kato was the author of the Twenty-One De- 
mands, but he seems quite changed, appreciating that progress 
along the lines of those Demands is impossible. Baron Shide- 
hara’s recent declarations respecting international questions 
I consider the wisest Japanese utterances of the kind in fifteen 
years. Tokyo, advantageously to itself and to us all, is enun- 
ciating great principles of statesmanship and thus reassuring 
the world.” 

“Do you know Gen. Baron Tanaka, who tisult is spoken of 
as Japan’s next Premier?” 

“Yes, I know him. His political ambitions puzzle me some- 
what. I easily could think of him as a field marshal leading an 
army into Manchuria; it is less easy for me to think of him 
as Prime Minister of Japan. I have no idea what he would do 
in that position. I have no knowledge of the interests seem- 
ingly ready to back Tanaka financially, and Japanese parties 
cannot operate without large funds. Let us hope that the 
renunciation of a military career by this brilliant soldier signi- 
fies his arrival at the conclusion that henceforth man’s highest 
glory is to be sought, not on the field of battle, but in the 
political council chamber.”’ 


War Peril in “Is that your conclusion>”’ 
the Far East. “‘T was born with that conclusion woven into 
my spiritual texture. That conclusion is in- 
herited by every true son and daughter of China. Our people 
are generations ahead of many others in their estimate of war 
and peace. China is too great to worship the sword. Its 
power is the power of weakness, not of strength; only the weak 
need the sword. What wise people would offer homage to a 


[ Page One Hundred Eighty-three ] 


CoH DL NUAMSSOP RSI: GPs a Soe AtN (Ba Wr em INe Gsa 


symbol of destruction? Whoever can translate the dense and 
superimposed inscriptions on the sword will cast it away with 
horror, for to read these inscriptions is to read history, and 
history is soaked with human blood.”’ 

“Do you think the sword has been sheathed permanently 
in the Far East>”’ 

*“*T am afraid not.” 

*‘Who is going to fight?” 

‘““There is great danger that Russia and Japan will fight. 
Diligent efforts are on foot to adjust Russo-Japanese relations 
peacefully, but I am not optimistic relative to their issue. 
Japan is still less disposed today than she was twenty years 
ago to tolerate a too-near Russian approach on the mainland 
of Asia opposite the Island Empire. Count Soyeshima of Japan 
predicted a few weeks ago that Russia and Japan would be at 
war within ten years. I should not be surprised if such a war 
came sooner. Both countries desire spheres in Mongolia and 
Manchuria. Room there should be, and to spare, for both, 
since Mongolia, with its area of more than 1,300,000 square 
miles, is one of the principal divisions of China and has a 
smaller population than has Chicago. 


Bolshevism as a_ “But room is not the essence of the matter. 
Growing Menace. Two mutually repugnant orders face each 

other, the Russian confiscatory, the Japan- 
ese conservative; the Russian based on a continent, the Japan- 
ese on an archipelago. Russia, naturally, has aggressive ten- 
dencies; Japan, naturally, is vigilantly defensive and wishes to 
establish her first lines of resistance on a periphery as distant 
as possible from the citadel of her national security. Peril in- 
heres in this situation, and China can heighten the peril by 
forgetting her national interests and involving herself in the 
latent Russo-Japanese conflict. China standing steadfastly 
apart, scrupulously Chinese, encouraging neither Russian ag- 
gression nor Japanese adventure on the Asian continent to fore- 
stall hypothetical Russian aggression, holds out the best 
promise of peace in the Far East.” 

“It is asserted that bolshevism already has penetrated 
deeply into China and that this achievement by the soviet 
agents is being energetically followed up.” 

“Bolshevism undoubtedly is at work in China. Soviet money 
has been used here freely. But the Chinese have not and never 
will have any natural sympathy with bolshevism. Individual- 


[ Page One Hundred Eighty-four } 


WesnOuy Ro Tet) Cer A IN WG eg BP Lie ee Rae babe 


ism is implanted at the core of Chinese character. Bolshevism 
can cause serious mischief in China only by projecting itself 
into our politics in support of one general against another, as, 
for example, Feng Yu-hsiang of Peking against Chang Tso-lin 
of Mukden, an eventuality that would bring Japan into the 
military equation. This would mean war, with China as the 
cockpit. My hope is that Chinese patriotism and wisdom will 
avert such a calamity, but I am apprehensive.” 


Physical and ‘‘Are there proofs of the use of soviet money 
Spiritual to foment trouble in China by way of embar- 
Despoilment. rassing the ‘bourgeois’ nations>?”’ 

“Proofs quite sufficient to convince me, 
though I myself have not juridical proofs. Moral evidence 
sometimes is the best evidence. When I see Chinese bolshe- 
vists who.a little time ago were walking or riding in the cheap 
and humble riksha, and who now sit back in their motor cars 
with liveried chauffeurs at the wheels, I do not need the find- 
ing of a court of law to tell me what has happened and is 
happening. Bolshevism in China and in other great countries 
has the financial backing of the Moscow revolutionaries.”’ 

“Is there in bolshevism anything you like?” _ 

*“There is in no form of forcible dispossessionism anything I 
like. I do not want to be dispossessed. I do not want to be 
despoiled. But, given the choice between the bolshevist, who 
would take away my flower pots, and the religionist, who would 
take away my ancestral tablets, I should choose the bolshevist. 
He, at any rate, is proposing only to rob me materially, where- 
as the religionist is proposing to rob me spiritually. I could 
get on happily enough with fewer flower pots, but I can spare 
none of the symbols of my affections and faith. Upon these | 
stand and by these I live.”’ 


Foreign Aggressions ‘But the bolshevists,’’ I ventured to 
Cause Unrest. say, “are out, according to their own 

prospectus, not only to seize private 
property after the manner of the highway robber, but to lay 
waste the religious and ethical systems of the world.”’ 

“If that be so,’’ said Dr. Tang, “‘at least one side of their 
program is fantastic. To seize private property is not beyond 
the limits of possibility; it is merely a question of accumulating 
sufficient physical force. But no commander can march an 
army into an individual soul and seize the treasures cherished 
there.”’ 


Page One Hundred Eighty-five | 


CoH IN JA SOS: RET GU GheS aA Ne Da Chana Crunes 


‘“‘Is there in Chinese psychology some morbid or abnormal 
condition favorable to bolshevist activity?” 

‘‘Yes; there is the irritation over the aggression of foreigners 
against China. This irritation, sense of wrong, resentment, 
causes social unrest and an instinctive tendency to a 
rapprochement with any influence hostile to the aggressors. 
But bolshevism is a faint speck on the situation. What mat- 
ters and what is going to continue to matter are the native 
emotions and thoughts and purposes of China. Strikes and 
riots like those of Shanghai, Hongkong, and Canton may not 
be caused by the larger agitation in the country—the agitation 
against extra-territorial courts, concessions, foreign land leases 
and externally imposed tariffs—but they immediately gain 
gravity from the deeper trouble. As, volcanically, when a 
break occurs in the crust of the earth pent-up forces rush for 
the outlet, so, socially, when there is a rent in the crust of public 
order repressed resentments concentrate there. No local dis- 
turbance in China, whatever its cause or nature, can remain 
really local until the general psychological situation shall 
have been normalized.” 


Violence the *‘Is there one evil above others that weighs 
Outstanding Evil. against amicable relations between the 
Chinese and the foreigners among them?”’ 

Dr. Tang, after looking steadily at me for a moment in 
silence, said impressively: 

“Yes; there is one dominant evil. It is the evil of violence.”’ 

**Violence>”’ 

“Violence. In the whole attitude and behavior of foreigners 
toward China there is implied or applied violence. This vio- 
lence is more pronounced on the part of some foreigners than 
of others, but it is virtually universal in some manner or degree. 
By powerful foreigners of no nationality are we treated as 
equals. We are treated as inferiors. We are bullied, and if we 
resent the bullying we are beaten. Our political freedom is 
impinged upon and restricted. Our territory is violated. We 
are forced to yield concessions. Our fiscal liberty and rights 
are taken away from us. All these things are made possible 
by violence or the threat of violence. 


Resentments of “Violence forms the groundwork of nearly 
Awakening China. all the theory of foreign authority in 

China; it is an instrumentality of govern- 
ment; it is deliberately terroristic. Violence implied or applied 


[ Page One Hundred Eighty-six | 


Wy Ome Rai CPP sAP Se atCaaise ni Lr at Re hs eee 


is deemed necessary to keep us in order, to keep us quiescent, 
submissive, long-suffering, serflike. Terrorism as a means of 
moral domination leading to physical domination was not liked 
by Western civilization when Germany had recourse to it in 
Belgium and France, but the same western civilization uses it 
against China. 


““Let me give you an instance, small in itself, but, thoroughly 
understood, laden with the full explication of that growing 
feeling in China which the world must take into account. In 
one of our treaty ports—one of our ports where Chinese ter- 
ritory is not Chinese territory—a plain-clothes detective, stroll- 
ing up a hillside street, cane in hand, finds an old Chinese 
woman’s basket of oranges too far out on the sidewalk. Does 
he say to her, “Madam, you must keep your wares off the foot- 
way?’ No. He raps her over the bare head with his cane, 
kicks the basket into the street, and coldly watches the oranges 
rolling away down the gutter. 


“If a Chinese gets in your way, give him the cane. If a 
Chinese protests that you have not paid him enough—who ever 
heard of a Chinese asking much?>—give him the cane. It is 
the Western idea. For the Chinese, and right here in his own 
country, too, unless he keeps his mouth shut and walks warily, 
it is always the cane. I ask you whether this can go on. I ask 
you if it can do anything but plant the seed of endless trouble.” 


Arousing the War Dr. Tang had risen from his chair and stood 
Spirit in Chinese. facing me, his hands held out in a quiet 
gesture of appeal. 


*‘Ask The Chicago Daily News to ask the world that,’’ he 
persisted. “Ask The Chicago Daily News to ask intelligent 
men anywhere, everywhere, if they think this use of brute 
force, this systematized inhumanity, is likely to bring relation- 
ships of peace and mutual benefit between foreigners and the 
uncounted millions of awakening China. 


“‘My country must be studied—I will not say restudied— 
by the world outside of it,’’ said Dr. Tang, resuming his chair. 
‘‘Almost nothing about us seems to be understood abroad. 
China’s character, motives, genius, historical mission, seem to 
have eluded even the most diligent and penetrating foreign 
minds. It generally is supposed, since we do not, fight, that 
we cannot fight—that we have neither the bodily nor the 
mental requisites of war. It is said we lack the ‘fighting spirit.’ 


[ Page One Hundred Eighty-seven ]} 


CcHULEN FA WAS Re DiC ia eS i AN 9 oe Wa CON aed 


‘‘What is the truth? We Chinese are hardy and accustomed 
to heavy burdens. I will show you a Chinese woman 70 years 
old ascending a hill carrying on a pole across her calloused 
shoulders two baskets of mortar of a weight to make a strong 
Western man stagger. We are bodily and mentally fit for war, 
and we have the morale for war; Chinese are not cowards; 
they are not afraid to die. Chinese have not learned war 
because they abominate it. So deep is their abomination of it 
that generations of foreign imposition and cruelty have not 
crushed out of their natures their congenital love of peace. 

“It is the peculiar and unpardonable sin of foreign persecu- 
tion of China that it tends to deflect the most populous nation 
in Asia and in the world from the paths of peace to the paths 
of war. It is said we are divided and in conflict internally. So 
we are, not so much really as apparently; there is marvelous 
fundamental cohesion in China. But I admit we have grave 
domestic troubles. For these are we entirely responsible? We 
are not. Our domestic ills are aggravated by our foreign ills. 
Social inflammation in spots, arising from extraterritorial im- 
pacts, produces pathological phenomena in all our centers of 
political and social life. 


Driving China from ‘‘China is not free to free herself from 
Peaceful Ways. dissension and set up a central govern- 
ment representing all her people and 

exposing a solid front to the world. Release all China’s energy 
for her domestic problems—remove the foreign yokes that in 
so many places gall and madden her—and she will not be a 
great while in placing her house in order. It is the tragedy of 
this momentous question between China and the outer world 
that we have, on the one hand, a people devoted to peace and 
militarily weak, and, on the other, powers that still cherish 
some of their ancient confidence in force, and that are organized 
and equipped to transform that confidence into instant action. 
“In a poignant situation that yearly—indeed, hourly—grows 
more dificult and menacing we only can hope that light will 
dawn where it is most needed before China shall come under 
the influence of the conviction that her peaceful and human- 
itarian aspirations have betrayed her, and that only in prepara- 
tion for war, if not in actual resort to war, can she find national 
salvation. I am frankly astonished to see great peoples strug- 
gling toward world peace through a League of Nations and at 
the same time pursuing policies in the Orient calculated to 


[ Page One Hundred Eighty-eight } 


Wie Omen Tami Cee ra Ami we eran slag yid at Es eaten Lege kate ts 


drive into militarism the greatest and most peaceful division 
of humanity known to the history of the world.” 


Justice Denied, ‘You feel quite certain foreigners are wrong 


China Grows in esteeming harshness a better quality than 
W arlike. sympathy for averting Chinese attacks upon 
them?” 


“‘Harshness has been tried and has failed. Never before was 
its failure so general and conspicuous as it is today. It is not 
especially sympathy the Chinese want; they would like com- 
mon humanity, of course, but what they demand is justice 
as justice is understood among civilized States. Firmness on 
the partiof the powers will not be complained of by the Chinese 
if that firmness be exercised for what is right. What we com- 
plain of is a firmness that inflicts political and territorial 
tyranny, economic and fiscal injustice, and personal brutality.” 

“It is argued, I observe, that it would not be prudent to do 
anything to meet the Chinese point of view while your people 
are creating a disturbance.” 

“Quite so. While our people are creating a disturbance 
nothing must be done; when we are docile and hard at work 
nothing need be done. Result: Disturbance or no disturbance, 
nothing is done. On this principle the machinery of progress 
is locked, while the day of reckoning relentlessly approaches. 
To the powers I say with all the force at my command: Make 
friends of the Chinese while they are disunited and militarily 
weak. Do this and they will be to you, as time goes on, not 
a source of danger and loss, but a source of security and profit. 
Either foreign magnanimity now or Chinese fighting efficiency 
sometime will compel justice to China.”’ 


Other Powers Must ‘Will the Chinese ever forget the wrongs 
Show Friendship. they allege against foreigners>”’ 

““Not forget them, perhaps, but forgive 
them. If foreigners are magnanimous toward the Chinese now 
and henceforth, the Chinese of China’s day of power will remem- 
ber the good deeds and not the bad ones, for the good deeds 
will be nearer to the Chinese of that generation. Start at once 
to make the Chinese of united China, whenever that day shall 
come, grateful for the kindnesses shown their country by 
foreigners and forgetful of foreigners’ wrongs against them. 
That way lies happiness in the Orient. That way lies the peace 
of the Pacific.”’ 


{ Page One Hundred Eighty-nine ] 


C HY EINSAU SS SUR Gah S VA SIN aL) ieee Eee Dies os 


“You believe in action.” 

“In the presence of a serious international problem that 
grows constantly more serious, to stand still is to await the 
thunderbolt; to advance perseveringly and prudently is to 
dissipate the clouds that harbor the thunderbolt. To well- 
meaning statesmanship throughout the world the call should 
be: ‘Action!’ Many a war might have been avoided if states- 
manship had not swung into action too late. Of all spheres of 
duty that of statecraft is the one in which carelessness, indo- 
lence, timidity, and procrastination attain their maximum of 
culpability.” 


Nations Should Have ‘‘When you speak of abolishing extra- 
Good Will. territoriality and other conditions 

offensive to China, have you in mind 
abrupt measures?” 

*“Radicalism, but not abruptness, of reform is what we have 
in mind. We want riddance of every violation of our sovereign 
status and rights. But we realize this cannot come in the 
twinkling of an eye. What we demand now, and what our 
national problems imperatively require, is a well-conceived 
and determined start on the way to the proposed goal. China 
is not unreasonable. She appreciates the complexities of a 
situation that has been long in maturing and presents features 
calling for patient and statesmanlike handling. 

*“‘Foreign life and property in China must be safe. China 
must accord as well as claim the recognized accompaniments 
of sovereignty in the civilized world. Co-operation is all that 
is necessary between the powers and our Republic, each side 
accepting the postulate that only through a just settlement of 
the problem can tranquillity and prosperity come to either in 
the Far East. Let the powers give unmistakable proof of willing- 
ness and purpose to absolve China from every form of foreign 
interference—letthem meet and formulate and proclaim their pro- 
gram of emancipation—and the national spirit of our people will 
rally to the support of our leaders in forming a national govern- 
ment capable of discharging the functions of a modern State. 


Why Foreign Lives ‘‘“To my thinking—and how can I be 
Are Imperiled. wrong about this>—it should be self-evi- 

dent that the one thing which gives rise 
to such danger to foreign life and property as prevails in China 
[ Page One Hundred Ninety ] 


Wee OW Rel oak) CA EA Nr Con oe lsat Lamy Poh FA tee Le Pai 


is the knowledge of my countrymen that China has suffered 
and is suffering great wrongs at the hands of foreigners. Once 
foreign peoples treat China with the respect and fairness they 
show one another, there will be no danger here to either their 
persons or their possessions. Chinese yield to none in their 
love for the amenities of civilized intercourse. Chinese are 
friendly folk. None will go further than they, nor sacrifice 
more, to be just to or serve a fellow man, whatever his color, 
religion or nationality.” 

*‘And what would be your final word on peace?”’ 

Dr. Tang’s expression changed from that of the objective to 
that of the subjective thinker; his mind had passed from the 
realm of practical politics to the realm of academic speculation. 

“If you and I stood together in this greatest commercial 
center of the Far East one hundred years from today,” said the 
Confucian seer, ‘““we might be able to shake each other by the 
hand and say, ‘At last the world has permanent peace.’ Educa- 
tion is the specific for the disease of war, and education works 
slowly. We must teach our children that to kill in war is 
precisely as criminal an act as to kill in civil life. Murder is 
murder. We loathe murderers. People must understand that 
war killers are murderers. ‘They must understand that war 
killing is not a national crime which can be brought home to 
nobody, but an individual crime from which the guilty cannot 
escape. 


Subduing the ‘‘Formule, machinery, superficial and artificial 
War Spirit. contrivances, will not protect us from war so 

long as fundamentally—so long as at the roots 
of our emotional and intellectual natures—we are warlike. We 
of this era are crammed with potential war. Itisin our marrow, 
our bones, our blood and fiber. It corrupts our souls and makes 
them hideous. We do not realize it is a cardinal sin against 
divinity and humanity. We do not appreciate the disgrace of 
it, its unutterable ignominy. It is there, deep inside us, await- 
ing the urge of occasion to leap forth in fury, pitiless as the 
sea, as convulsions of nature, as primeval fire. 

“Education alone can subdue this monster. Education can 
fill our emotional and intellectual natures with a sense of the 
reasonableness, beauty, majesty, and beneficence of peace. [ 
am happy to know The Chicago Daily News is educationally 
active in this great field of international relations, where we 
know so little and need to know so much. I hope and believe 


{ Page One Hundred Ninety-one ] 


C OH ION WA 2S ae Relt Gis ts eR AW NID. AW ice Cini Gece 


its efforts will bear fruit, and | hope its initiative will inspire 
similar activity, in order that mankind may be awakened to 
the truth that ‘ignorance is,’ indeed, ‘the curse of God,’ and 
‘knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven’.”’ 


A, e Pas 
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GAYLORD 






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PRINTEDINU.S.A. 























D443 .B4 
World chancelleries; sentiments, ideas, 


Princeton Theological Seminary—Speer Library 


1 1012 00147 9882 


